


73 Aberdeen

by Mici (noharlembeat)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Blackmail, F/M, M/M, Werewolf, alternate universe - Slytherin Sirius Black, first wizarding war, house-elf, musings on middle age, original female house-elf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-02
Updated: 2013-10-02
Packaged: 2017-12-28 05:00:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 30,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/987973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noharlembeat/pseuds/Mici
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are some things ungoverned by fate. If Sirius Black had gone the path of every Black before him, if he had been in Slytherin, he would have been a very different boy. It would have been a very different war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. They imagine, then, how it will go:

It’s raining when the portkey dumps him in a London alleyway, and Remus is soaked in a second. His breath curls out in front of him, and he realizes, as his hair sticks to his forehead and his clothes ice to his skin that it’s not so much rain as it is sleet, icy and painful. He clambers over heaps of rubbish – muggle junk, old takeaway boxes, the smelly, drippy slices of other people’s lives – and pulls his coat tighter around his body.

He knows what he’s looking for. There’s a sign, it’s hard to see and even harder to know if you’re not in the Order. He checks the wall of the rowhouses when he gets out of the alley, running his fingers against the rough brick. He wishes he could take out his wand, he wishes his fingers weren’t freezing, but the fact is that he can’t and they are. Even this far into the heart of London, there is a war. Maybe especially this far into the heart of London.

He feels and finds it – a depressed series of cuts in the shape of a phoenix feather, and then one, two, three vertical slashes upwards. He looks back, to where the rounded part of the feather was pointing and counts the doors, and at the third door he gives a miserable knock.

He hates using the safehouses.

It’s not because he doesn’t trust them, which is why Peter hates using the safehouses. Dumbledore is more than capable of determining who is trustworthy and who isn’t, and Remus is hardly worried about that, but it’s because once in a safehouse there is no telling how long before he’ll be able to get out again, and the chances of transforming get higher and higher. The time near Cardiff, with the Gotobed family, and their little girl-

Well. 

Remus shudders at the thought, but knocks anyway. There’s no choice, now. He needs to get under cover, he needs to find a place, and the moon just passed a week ago, so he has time to gather. It doesn’t have to be for long, he tells himself. A week. A few days. Dumbledore’ll get word and he’ll be out in no time. 

The door opens, and Remus feels every raindrop like a pin that seeps right through his skin and into his chest, battering at the door to his lungs, making air impossible. “Are you-“

“Get in, you’ll be seen,” Sirius Black hisses, moving over, just enough to let Remus in before he closes the door. “Merlin,” he adds, once Remus is inside and dripping on his very fine wood floor, “I’ve seen strays look less sad than this.” He turns and calls out, “Tibby! For the love of-Tibby!”

There’s a crack and Remus takes a startled step back as a clean house-elf – a house-elf, of course Sirius - _Black_ has a house-elf – dressed in a clean blue tea towel with eyes like saucers appears and _squeaks_ , “Yes, Master Sirius?”

“Run a hot bath for my guest, see him to the upstairs bedroom, and have his clothes cleaned and dried in the meantime. And, I don’t know, if he’s hungry – are you hungry?”

“I-yes, I mean, if it’s not too much-“

“And give him the rest of whatever it was I ate for dinner.” Sirius finishes in his best aristocratic drawl, and turns on his heel. “I’m going back to work.”

Remus hardly has time to enquire before he’s being shepherded, dripping icy puddles of water, up a narrow staircase. The house isn’t so large that he imagines its Sirius’ grand family palace of Grimmauld place (known by reputation only), but the kind of home owned by a consummate bachelor or maybe a young couple – tidy and neat, but dripping in money just from the color and quality of the wallpaper and the stain on the wood. The house-elf (Tibby, Remus reminds himself as he thanks her for the towel and the drawn bath and embarrassingly, the dressing robe after) does as she’s told, and Remus sits in the bath for what feels like an eternity and tries to soak up the blissful heat, steel himself for what awaits him below, and wonder what he did to earn this particular punishment.

Sirius Black, he thinks. Not exactly someone he ever thought he would see again, after he left school. Not someone he ever really _wanted_ to see again (are you lying? his traitorous brain asks, and he shushes it) and definitely not someone who he expected to be running a safehouse for the Order during the middle of the worst War known to Wizardkind in recent or ancient memory. When people think of Sirius Black, he imagines, they think of the Slytherin pureblooded boy whose lasting legacy was mostly one of control.

It’s not what Remus thinks, of course, but he doesn’t dwell on it. He dips his head under the water and shakes away the last remnants of the December chill from his skin and gets out and dries off, wrapping his (no, not his, his was never, even at Hogwarts, so thick and plush and decadent) dressing robe around his waist and heads back downstairs, to the kitchen, where he smells food, and gratefully accepts a plate of pork chops (meat, he blesses for a moment, in a thick gravy) and mash and is about to start shoveling it in mouth with no regard for where he is when the master of the house comes into the kitchen, and Tibby squeaks and _cracks_ elsewhere, probably to fluff a pillow or turn down a bed or save herself.

Now that he’s dry and warm and almost fed, Remus feels his stomach bottoming out. He had forgotten, in the time between then and now, how beautiful Sirius Black really is. He had forgotten how he is exactly like his namesake, a brilliant, bright star, impossible not to look at, with a mass of thick hair and eyes so grey that they match the underbellies of clouds on those days where despite the coverage, the air is still incredulously bright. It is as though time has dulled so much, softened the edges of Black’s sharp beauty in his memory. But now faced with it again, Remus doesn’t have any defense.

“Don’t let me stop you eating my food, by all means,” Black says. “When is the last time you ate, anyway?”

Remus stares at the mash, suddenly fighting the embarrassment. He can’t hold down a job, hasn’t managed in a while, and hasn’t even really seen food this rich since he left school. He’s not starving, but he’s not eating like a king, either. “Yesterday,” he manages, “I was a bit preoccupied,” he continues, and would add more, but realizes that Black knows exactly what preoccupied him.

“Yes, I would imagine,” the other man drawls, and sets a cup of tea down on the table. Remus fixes his gaze on his long fingers, covered in rings as though he were some kind of prince. But he doesn’t say anything else – instead he sits silently across from the table for a moment, watching him, as Remus eats, and it’s decidedly awkward. 

Once he finishes he looks up, and thanks Black in a voice that isn’t quite a mumble, reduced back to the role of awkward schoolboy in a turn of events he did not really expect. He remembers that he should not be muttering and mumbly, but that rather he should just remember what happened, that night, and remarkably, it helps. “I didn’t expect you to be hosting a safehouse.”

“You mean you expected me to be a Death Eater.” Black’s voice is dangerously soft, just like in school when something upset him. 

It’s oddly comforting, that at least that hasn’t seemed to change at all. “It would have surprised me less, you’re right,” Remus says back, fully aware that he’s here on Black’s generosity and Dumbledore’s good name, and nothing else. 

“Well, surprise,” Black says, the irritation on his face only visible because Remus knows the signs to look for behind that arrogant, chilling mask. The way his eyes darken a little, or the way the corners of his lips tighten. “Here you are.”

“Not for long,” Remus states, getting up. “Once my clothes dry-“

Black interrupts him, but doesn’t move. “You don’t have a choice. Word came in from Dumbledore ten minutes after you got here. You’re not to leave.”

Remus feels all the muscles in his back seize up. “You’re making that up,” he says, automatically, feeling suddenly repulsed that Black would do that. Of course he would, wouldn’t he?

Black passes a note over, charred and looking very much like it came through the fire, or perhaps carried by a bird that also carried fire, and Remus knows it’s the truth then, without even looking at the note. He knows, then, that Dumbledore knows exactly what Remus knows, and how valuable that knowledge is. The scroll says exactly what Black said it would. “Welcome to 73 Aberdeen,” Black snorts, almost in a drawl, and gets up from his place, and leaves the kitchen, as if he’s the slighted party in this situation.

Remus presses his hands against his face and runs them over his cheeks, but nothing gets better.

~~~~~

He can remember the very first time he saw Sirius Black.

He’s not easy to forget. He was first to be sorted, and the hat stalled, sat quiet for a long time, and all the first years (especially the muggle-born) giggled nervously, wondering what happened. But then the hat yelled Slytherin and Remus watched the boy get down and the look on his face go from excited to resigned, like maybe this story has been written out long before they got there.

That was the first time he saw Sirius Black, but the first time they spoke was at their first potions lesson, where Remus was trying hard to take notes and focus and he turned his head a moment too late, and chopped up bits of slug ended up on his cheek instead of on Potter, who was sitting on Remus’ other side. 

Slughorn had not docked points, but Sirius Black, all smiling, leaned over, “Well, that wasn’t really for you, but good enough for now, I suppose. Good time, Lupin?”

Remus, in a gesture that he was rather sure came from some deep need to prove himself worth his new house and his new friends (well, his new roommates, certainly) scraped slug and slime off his cheek and pressed it into Black’s hair. But he didn’t smile when he replied, “Good time, Black,” with a sour look on his face.

The shock on the other boy’s face had almost been worth the ten points from Gryffindor. But Sirius Black’s sudden awareness of Remus may not have been in his best interest. He should have noted the lack of immediate revenge. He should have not tossed it off as nothing, as a simple exchange that ended there.

That meeting was his first indication. Their second altercation, which ended with Remus hanging from the underside of a revolving staircase almost two months later, guaranteed it. It hadn’t been that dangerous, really. Black had timed it well, worked his charmwork flawlessly, and taken Remus’ school tie on top of it, as if that would just add fuel to the fire. Remus hung there, uselessly, for ten minutes before a Ravenclaw sixth year spotted him and got him down.

It was a lesson.

Sirius Black was trouble. Clever, fiendish, cruel trouble. But more than that, he was patient enough for revenge. 

~~~~~~~~

Sirius had not expected anyone, but then they always show up at his door when he doesn’t, usually in the most inclement weather on the worst possible days of the year. No one ever shows up when it’s a warm sunny day and Sirius has just finished a good swath of work and everything seems just fine, outside the fact that there’s a madman out on the streets who wants the entire wizarding world in some kind of flame or another. His entire generation is out fighting a war and he’s sitting inside, watching it unfold with a cup of tea and a book. 

It makes him feel uncomfortably middle-aged.

He had not expected anyone but mostly he had not expected Remus Lupin, looking like a wet cat, soaked to the skin and shivering and needing a place to stay. Sirius should have seen this coming, he should have anticipated this, but he didn’t. Not for the first time does he wish he were living in some hostile, coldwater flat with bad lighting and no glass in the windows and braving Death Eaters and Voldemort instead of in his townhouse like some middle aged failure. 

Of course it’s all unspeakably dramatic. Sirius thrived, once, on drama, or at least on controlling drama – letting it out in measured amounts, tamping down on it, or watching the chaos bubble freely – but now he just finds it exhausting, and the more he thinks about it the more exhausted he feels. He’s twenty-one years old and he feels like he’s fifty. Or at least he acts like it. 

But Remus Lupin.

He’s shivering and dripping on his doorstep and all Sirius can think, for a brief, glorious instant is that the past six years have been some strange hallucination, some Imperio curse gone strangely awry, and here was Remus, home, to relieve him of house-watching duties so that he could go out and shake off some of his ennui.

But no.

It had taken him a good moment to remember the name of the bloody house-elf before he was foisting off his latest pathetic wayward child on her and trundling back to his writing, except he couldn’t write. He instead tried to forget that Lupin was sitting upstairs in his spare bath, naked (his brain chose to focus on that with a cruel sort of stubbornness) and that no matter what transpired, nothing would actually be _fixed._

That’s why he had written to Dumbledore asking for the name of the next house on the chain, but Dumbledore had forced him to keep Lupin, and now Sirius is stuck with him for at least a few days. But with the war going the way it is, and with more and more pressure mounting for him to join a side instead of staying neutrally in his house (or so his family believes) Sirius wonders if this isn’t going to be a longer ride than just a usual three day stint watching Tibby clean and cook.

He sits in his chair and considers how he even got into this mess at all. He hadn’t thought, when he left Hogwarts, that he was really well-suited for something brave and dashing and daring, not after his fifth year and the mess he made. He thought that this was its own kind of atonement, living in Alphard’s old house, and dabbling in danger by letting Dumbledore use him as a safehouse. But it turns out that atonement is boring, and there truly is no justice in the world because there’s Remus, showing up the very night that Sirius has had more than enough, cooped up like a prisoner.

He manages not to sneak up and watch the man bathe. He manages not to make any lewd comments when he’s eating. He manages, and it’s horrible, and it makes him sick, because he feels less like himself than he’s ever felt in his life.

~~~~~~~  
He imagines, then, how it will go.

He’s only eleven but he’s heard enough, seen enough, been walked through the hallowed grounds of the school he would attend by his father (who is not a Governor, thank you, he has far too many things to do to deal with such trivial matters) and now, this is the first time he will be alone, without his family. He imagines some sort of freedom, some sort of moment where he can, for the first time since the moment he was born and _welcomed into the blood_ , he will be able to simply be himself.

He imagines it, but that’s not how it goes.

The way it goes, of course, is that Narcissa – already a fifth year – keeps a sharp eye on him on the train, at the request of his father, and he’s bored to death as she talks. And talks. And _talks_. And keeps _talking_ , none of it substantial or interesting. Andromeda, who would normally be there to keep her younger sister in line (or at least distract her) is off, bounding away to some other car with her silver and green scarf trailing on the floor.

“Do you ever _stop talking_ ,” Sirius finally says after they pass York – it’s in the distance, he can see the very faintest part of it from the window. “I could be finding people my own age,” he points out.

“People your own age,” Narcissa sniffs, her nose curling in manner that could not possibly be attractive to _anyone_ , “are as of yet unsorted.” 

That, Sirius thinks, is the entire basis of their appeal, although a part of him considers that, truly does. He is unsorted. He could go anywhere. To Ravenclaw (not bookish enough, a part of him thinks) or Hufflepuff (Ha!) or even Gryffindor (except he can see the Howlers coming in, scorching at what he imagines must be a magnificent breakfast spread). Except he knows he won’t. He knows that the freedom he wants to feel is an illusion, because he’ll end up in Slytherin, and Narcissa and Andromeda will keep their eyes on him, and he will-

“Don’t _slouch_ , sit up straight.” Narcissa is bad at a great many things, but one thing she is excellent at is catching bad posture, as much as a tailored waistcoat and trousers will let one slouch. Sirius sits up. He’ll manage. Of course he will.

On the other side of the train, in another life, he imagines there are friends, but, well.

He’s a Black.

The train ride isn’t horrible (boring, but he manages to get a hex in, and Narcissa screaming about the color of her hair is rather good), and then the castle, well, the castle.

He wishes that he could say that it hadn’t overwhelmed him, that he was so used to magic – his mother, his father, the maids, the bloody _house-elf_ , his entire family, or well, just the house itself – had inured him to the joy of pure magic, had broken him of the wonder that besieged him as the ships floated along, illuminated by a lantern, across the lake to the castle. But the fact is that Sirius is so besotted with his new home that he doesn’t even notice the other people in his boat with him, just stares up at the castle. The doors to the great hall open and later he will say he was watching coolly, taking it in, but the fact of the matter remains that he doesn’t recall much of what happened that night.

Well.

That’s not true, either.

He remembers his name being called, and that’s when his memory pitches from distinct impressions of spires and starry skies and foggy, brief notions of tables and chairs and people to clarity so sharp that sometimes the memory slices him like a knife, if he mishandles it. He’s the first name, and he sits on that stool and has a grotty hat put on his head and he closes his eyes and thinks, _well, Slytherin, then._

The Hat answers back. “Slytherin? Are you sure? There is ambition, there, and potential, and _drive_. Another Black in Slytherin, that wouldn’t surprise anyone at all.”

 _I didn’t know you were in the business of surprising people_ , Sirius thinks back, in what he feels is a rather brave attempt at conversation.

“Bravery would do well in Gryffindor, you know. You have the rebellious streak to you, it would foster you, if you let it.”

But suddenly all that Sirius can imagine is a flurry of Howlers landing on the table, smoking and roiling themselves into the table until they would be his legacy, that place where Sirius Black sat, and everyone knows it, because the scorchmarks will be there until the day Hogwarts burns to the ground. Probably in a further flurry of Howlers, all left ignored as they descended down the main staircases.

By the time that image finishes working through his head, the hat is crying out “ _Slytherin_!” and there’s clapping, and the hat is off his head before the hat can see him imagining himself at the top of the stairs, watching the Howlers fluttering, and realizing he doesn’t care, not a whit.

But it doesn’t matter because he’s now sitting at the table, surrounded by silver and green and thinking, _well, it could be worse._

He looks over to the Hufflepuff table where a very fat ghost is greeting a friendly looking girl with her hair in a plait and shakes his head out.

The sorting continues, but Sirius doesn’t pay it much mind, even when other Slytherins come in to join his table. He’s known some of them since he was a small child – well, a smaller child – and they all sit in a way that is half torn between reverence and hesitance. “You know,” he says to the person next to him, “I’m only dangerous when I’m annoyed.”

The person next to him, a pale boy with lank dark hair that looks like it could use a good washing and robes that, while not second-hand, are clearly not the same quality as his own, “At least we share that one quality,” he says, and looks Sirius over, as if trying to decide what he’s going to do about this. The look only lasts another moment. “Severus Snape.”

He doesn’t know that name, it’s not on his list of approved names and friendships, but he’s in Slytherin so at the very least Sirius realizes he should probably at least get on with the boy. “Black,” he says, and decides that for the moment, that’s good enough. Isn’t it?

But even if he were going to announce his Christian name he’s interrupted by the arrival of food, and he gives a bit of a yelp of joy, despite having missed all the announcements and the rest of the sorting by being caught up in his own head. It doesn’t matter, because that’s not likely to happen again. He grins over and sees that everyone is eating, but that the first years are keeping mostly to themselves, and he hopes that the next seven years are not indicated by this one meal, because he cannot fathom the amount of boredom.

The feast ends with dessert that Sirius enjoys with all the gratitude of someone raised by Walburga Black – that is to say, being allowed to consume it without worrying about getting icing sugar down the front of his robes, for once. Afterwards the prefects – Andromeda among them, making Sirius just a touch proud about the fact that she, the pretty one, is his cousin – lead them down to the dungeons. At night, it’s hard to see a great deal of the appeal of living down here (thanks, Salazar, is all Sirius can come up with, annoyed at the damp) but the common room is sufficiently different from home, where the furniture is for looking at, not for sitting comfortably in, that Sirius already feels a bit of the pressure rise from his chest. The windows – not properly windows, really, because outside is the dimness of the lake – are muddy and cloudy now, but he can imagine that during the day the effect is probably not horrible.

And his bed is warm and squashy and private, and even if the drapes are green and silver and it’s starting to sound like Edward Blishwick snores (distant cousin or not, Sirius will go mad if he has to listen to that seven years running) he thinks that maybe this will all be quite all right.

~~~~~

Remus wakes up and for one horrible moment he thinks that he must have died in the night because his face is mashed into the softest pillow created by man, and he doesn’t feel the usual level of exhaustion that sleeping in his usual haunts usually gives him. There’s the smell of warm bread and fruit and jam and when he wakes up, there it is.

And then the bottom of the dream, nightmare, inverted fantasy, whatever this is, falls out when he recalls exactly where he is. He sits up and stares at the tray of breakfast on a nearby table and groans. The house elf, of course, the house elf is behind this, he thinks. Not because Black wouldn’t do this, but because he doesn’t want to think about Black arranging for a perfectly arranged tray of croissants and fruit with butter and tea, and a small hot pot of tea being as tantalizing as possible.

Remus doesn’t want tea (no, that’s a lie. He pours himself a cup and hates how much he loves it), he wants to leave before he can be saddled into another conversation with Sirius Black. He wants to apparate to James and Lily’s place and hide under their spare bed for a few days and be sulky and angry about this entire affair.

But instead he is drinking Sirius Black’s tea and trying to not let his irritation get the better of him. He thinks he shouldn’t go downstairs, he should just stay up in the bedroom and avoid the man who he’s rather sure he hates more than anyone else on the planet but in the end he decides that as he is no longer five years old, and as he has nothing to be ashamed of, he won’t.

Black is sitting at his kitchen table looking very much like he hasn’t slept and even then he looks beautiful. The house-elf – no, Tibby – is standing on a stool behind him and trying to brush his hair as he reads the newspaper. It’s not going well, because Black keeps tugging his head away and swearing at her, and she looks about one vile word from running to smash her head into the oven door.

“Did you see this?” Black snarls, “Did you honestly come here after _this_?”

He tosses the newspaper between them and the headline reads _Northumberland witches slain in the largest massacre of muggle-borns ever_ and Remus feels sick to his stomach. “No,” he says, “I wasn’t there, I was Sussex, and have a care, Black-“

Black doesn’t have a care. He stands and Tibby topples off her stool and to the ground before she’s taking off somewhere that isn’t this kitchen. “This is _my house_ ,” he begins, righteous pureblooded anger bubbling up at being spoken back to, even a little, until suddenly it looks like he remembers who he’s speaking _to_ , because instead of his temper going straight into the darkest place his soul can go (and Remus is utterly and horrifying aware of just how dark that place is) he seems to deflate, and he sets his newspaper down.

“And?” Remus asks, feeling suddenly combative. Like maybe they can actually have a conversation about this. Like adults. “You weren’t there either, I notice.”

But Black sees the bait and doesn’t take it. “I’m disinclined to leave. Someone has to keep watch here.”

“I’m told house-elves are perfectly capable of opening doors. It’s not surprising at all you have one, by the way.”

Black bristles and Remus wonders what he’s doing, picking this fight. Trying, perhaps, to get him to insist on Remus leaving instead of staying about the place until Dumbledore is ready to have him fetched or moved or let go. “She came with the house, what was I supposed to do, let her go?”

“And have you hair unbrushed? Never.” Remus crosses his arms over his chest.

“For starters, so much as say the word _shirt_ and she-“ Tibby squeak and slams her head against a door, and apparates away, and Sirius looks disgusted. “See, just like that. Say what’s upsetting you already, let’s move on with this conversation-“

“I’m not upset at you, except for possibly abusing your servants,” Remus shoots back, “I’m simply telling you the truth. You could be out there, too. On one side, or another.”

Black’s voice drops, softens, gets dangerously quiet. “I have no desire to _die_.”

No, Remus thinks, but this, mercifully, he keeps to himself. Only to lead people there. “Well, then, let’s keep my comings and goings out of the morning conversation, as you’re unlikely to find out more than that, in any case.”

“Don’t you trust me?” Black asks, and Remus hears a fifteen year old boy ask that, in a different tone, and he knows when his rage reaches a point where a conversation is no longer viable.

He doesn’t do what he wants to do, which is to punch Sirius Black in the mouth. Instead he firms his mouth against speech, turns, and walks away.

~~~~~~

In his third year, Remus figures out what friendship is. Peter Pettigrew had been his friend, in a manner, since their first year – good for studying, and good for a game of gobstones. Good for casting tricky little charms, which Peter, despite being a vaguely negligible student in all other subjects, was surprisingly crafty at. James Potter, who slept on the other side of him for a year and caused trouble and mischief like it was his legacy, didn’t mind them until at some point in their second year when James realized how good Remus actually was at avoiding trouble. They were friends, but not close, not until their third year where James became a chaser on the Gryffindor Quidditch team and routinely needed Remus’ help to get out of detentions so that he could stay on the team, instead of in the classroom cleaning out old cauldrons.

It’s Halloween when it happens, the cementing moment; because that’s the night that James takes Remus aside after the feast. 

At this point, Remus is so full of treacle tart and cinder toffee and something eggy and delicious that it’s the most he can do to walk out to just outside the Great Hall, where James parks them both behind a suit of armor and whispers something.

“What?” Remus rubs his own forehead and leans in closer, and James mutters again, and Remus has to actually ask, “Can you speak up please?”

“I know you’re a…I know about your furry little problem, mate,” he says just loud enough, this time, and Remus feels like someone’s poured water down the back of his robes, “And I wanted you to know I know, and I don’t care, but also, I need your advice on the best way to get those enormous stingless bees that we transfigured from quail eggs into the Hufflepuff common room.”

That part is so confusing that for a moment Remus thinks that James is drunk. “Potter,” he says, carefully, “Are you telling me you don’t care I’m a werewolf?”

“Yes, and also, _giant stingless bees_ ,” he says, pushing his glasses up on his nose. “This is tremendously important, Remus, so if you will focus on the things that matter, here.” 

“Is this about how they live next door to the kitchens?” Remus asks, the feeling of frozen wastelands that were rising in his stomach shaking off. It’s a Halloween miracle, if such a thing exists.

James looks furious for an instant. “How is it fair, I ask, how is it even _remotely_ fair, that we Gryffindors brave the elements and the horrible perils of the world about us – that we, the bravest, the _best_ , to be honest here, have to _sneak_ the furthest out of any dorm,” he holds a finger up as if he can sense Remus ready to interrupt, “ _further than the Ravenclaw tower_ in actual distance that cannot be accessed via _broomstick_ from delicious edibles?”

“You do realize that it’s not actually their fault, right?”

“Remus there are principles and we are the men to stand up for it. Giant stingless bees. You know how to transfigure them better than I,” James says gravely, and Remus takes a moment to not hug him, but to smile awkwardly, because despite James’ bizarre vendetta against the Hufflepuffs and his need to antagonize them with their House colors, he believes, absolutely believes, that this is actually what his father meant when he said that he would make friends at Hogwarts he would have for the rest of his life.

He probably didn’t anticipate the giant stingless bees, but then no one could anticipate the madness that is James Potter, honestly.

That’s why ten minutes later, when they are both meandering back, Peter ahead of them a bit as they plot the great stingless bee prank of 1973, it’s such a ridiculous, betraying feeling when he suddenly gets hit with a jinx and starts oozing slime like he’s a slug, and he turns to see Sirius Black with an amused grin on his face and a wand that looks like a family heirloom in his hand. Behind him is Regulus Black, who looks more bored than anything, and Severus Snape is beside the Black brothers, and he’s laughing, laughing, laughing, as Remus reaches for his wand only to drop it because he’s covered in goo, and he turns to James to find him equally gooey. 

“Enjoy the slime, boys,” Sirius Black says with a grin and a bow, and Snape laughs harder, but they take off when they hear girls coming around the corner and Lily Evans and Dorcas Meadowes find Remus and James slipping in puddles of oozy slime as Peter tries to help them stay up.

James spots Evans and howls, “ _This was not my fault_ ,” which, to be fair, it wasn’t, but Remus hardly has the patience to point out that when people scream that it is because they’re usually relatively guilty. “I’ve been slugged! It was Sirius Black! And that greasy one, Snape!”

Dorcas is blessedly unafraid of slugs and she picks Remus up as Lily snaps back, “Don’t blame Severus for the things that Black does, honestly, Potter!”

“Will you stop defending him and help us, Evan-no, don’t walk away, _Evans!_ ” James cries as she goes. “Have you no loyalty at all?”

“I’m going to get a prefect, will you _shut up_ , honestly!” She snaps back, and good as her word, she does.

The pair of them are toted back to the Gryffindor common rooms where they ooze in front of the fireplace, and Fabian Prewett laughs and laughs and _laughs_ while Gideon Prewett tries every spell in his repertoire to try and unslug them. “I can’t believe we’re _producing slime,_ ” Remus says mournfully, as Fabian falls back on a chair and laughs until his twin throws his wand at his head in a bit of a huff. “We’re boy-shaped slugs. Slugs shaped like boys.” He was having such a good night, too.

“I can’t believe that Sirius Black even knows a spell like this,” Lily says, her nose in a book of countercurses. “I think he actually transfigured your sweat glands.”

Gideon scoffs at that. “Don’t underestimate Sirius Black,” he says, “All the Blacks have a nasty streak. The boys,” he says, referring to both Sirius and Regulus, “just control their tempers better than the rest of their family. And with all the money that family has? You know they have those old spellbooks with these kinds of horrible spells in them just sitting around the house for a bit of light reading.” He looks over at Lily’s book and goes to fetch his wand from where Fabian is sitting.

Fabian, finally either sick of laughing or actually interested in the conversation adds in, “First thing you should always remember about the Blacks is that they actually believe that pureblood nonsense, and that they’ve been believing it for a long time. Did you know that their parents are second cousins?”

Lily sniffs, and looks down, intrigued in her book. Remus looks slightly away. Blood politics aren’t really a huge part of their lives in Gryffindor, he thinks; the Prewetts are a very old family, and James’ family is particularly pure blooded as well. But he and Lily aren’t, and it’s not a topic anyone brings up. “Can we just focus on making us boys again?”

Fabian looks over at Gideon. “How about that cleaning spell Molly uses, mixed with that anti-slug spell that Arthur favors?”

“Wait you can’t just mix spells like that-“ Lily begins, but it’s too late, because the twins have already done it, and both Remus and James are hit. They look at each other and bend over, and soon they are vomiting slugs onto the Gryffindor common room floor. Marlene McKinnon _screams_ and jumps over Peter, who is watching in fascination until he’s squashed, and Remus is coughing and spewing slime all over the place. “Or maybe you can,” Lily mutters.

“I think I’ve stopped oozing,” James moans.

“Me too,” Remus says in agreement, flopping over in the puddle of slime, and groans in disgust. There are things that cement a friendship, he decides, trying to get up, as Fabian obligingly starts casting housecleaning spells. One of them is knowing your friends don’t care you turn into a monster every month, and another is being turned into a giant slug shaped like a boy and lying in a puddle of one another’s slime.

~~~~~~~

The number one thing about Sirius that most people don’t realize is how good he was at Herbology, and how much he genuinely enjoys it. Mostly people think of the Blacks and think of dedicated spell-caster good at solid spellwork, and the physical labor could go to the house-elves. However, Sirius actually likes fussy plants, he’s good at making them do exactly what he wants, and he’s good at getting rare and prickly plants to bloom. Besides, it means less dealing with the outside world, for the rare instances he actually brews a potion.

Of course no one knows this because Sirius doesn’t leave his house or talk about his garden, but he’s there, a fag hanging off the corner of his lips as he wrestles a stubborn bubotuber back into its container. The thing doesn’t want to be repotted – not that it has a choice, or will to fight back, but the roots cling to the pot with a vengeance and by the time Sirius manages to tamp it down into a new pot, he’s covered in dirt.

“I had forgotten about your little hobby,” Lupin says from the doorway, and Sirius turns to scowl up at him. In school, very few people knew about this particular proclivity. “The great Sirius Black, a closet gardener.” 

“We all had our secrets, didn’t we?” He asks and feels particularly nasty when he says it, but Lupin isn’t the boy he was in school, a Gryffindor by merit of situation alone, almost.

Lupin just gives him the kind of look that could wither bark off a tree. “Do you really want to speak to me that way?”

“See,” Sirius begins, sucking on the end of his fag, not caring that it’s not lit, “that’s always been your problem. Always willing to give a man _warning_ -“

“Don’t start about _warning_ , Black,” Lupin hisses back, “You gave me no warning at all, what I do is at least sporting-“

Sirius feels the bait rise, he can see it, bobbing up in front of him, but he doesn’t care, “Shall we go with hunting metaphors? How about how in some circles it’s considered sport to release a werewolf just before the full moon and chase it down before it –“

Sirius doesn’t realize how close Lupin is until Lupin is pushing him back into the wall of the house, his arm against his throat. “Shut up,” he all but snarls, “shut up, you, of all people, have _no right_ to speak to me that way.”

Sirius had his hands on Lupin’s robes, the tattery, shabby things, and he pushes him away. His voice drops, low, dangerous. He learned, years ago, that shouting never solved the things he wanted solved. Shouting only resulted in people taking you less seriously. “Considering everything, I doubt you really have the right to push me around my own home,” he says, and nods his head up. “The protection spells end at the door, get back inside.”

It’s a bit of a rush, an embarrassing one, when Lupin gives him a look that curdles but does as he’s told and trundles back inside the house. Sirius sits for a moment before he follows him inside. “You could just say the part that’s bothering you, and spare us both the rest of this bloody snit,” he says. Tibby is in the kitchen, and she looks up at Sirius at the same time he looks down at her. “And you, will you go and be _useful_ -“

“I would really prefer if you didn’t speak to her that way-“

“Fortunately for the both of us, she’s about to disappear, so you don’t have to hear it anymore,” Sirius interrupts, although it rankles a bit to be told how to speak to a house-elf – for Merlin’s sake, it’s not like she’s a whole _person_ \- and Tibby obliges with a _crack_ of her magic. “So will you just say it already?”

Lupin responds to the latest tone, and Sirius files that away under pertinent information. “We both know what’s bothering me, so can we just stop pretending we don’t?”

Sirius goes silent for a moment, and nods his head, finally, in agreement. 

~~~~~

He’s caught flat-footed in his second year at Hogwarts, just around the time that Narcissa won’t shut about about getting married. Qualifications, she decides, are not nearly as important as marrying Lucius Malfoy and beginning the continuation of the pureblooded line of wizards and witches. Word is that that her marks are suffering for it, or at least, that is what his father writes him, because that is the kind of thing his father speaks about. It’s not that she doesn’t like school as much as she really likes Lucius Malfoy, who Sirius thinks looks a bit too much like a blonde ferret, but then he hasn’t liked Lucius since he gave Sirius an old tome of pureblood family names for his ninth birthday, as though that were actually a gift any person, pureblood or not, would actually _want_.

It’s just at the beginning of the year, right after the holidays, when everyone is returning to school. Regulus only sniffles a little at the train, although Sirius suspects it has less to do with leaving _home_ and more to do with leaving Kreacher’s cooking, which is actually very good. But then, Regulus has an odd relationship with the miserable house-elf, and Sirius can’t say he fully understands.

But once they’re back and classes begin again, everything seems the same, except that Sirius feels like something’s going to happen, although he can’t exactly seem to figure out what. It’s like an itch in a spot that he can’t reach – deeply irritating but at the end of the day, painless and harmless. He assumes it has something to do with Nasha Max, his only real rival for leadership inside of Slytherin, but Sirius’ talents for divination are likely more attributable to indigestion than they would be to actual latent ability.

It’s not that Slytherin has a distinct leadership hierarchy and it’s not really that Sirius would want it anyway. No one cares about the prefects or that other nonsense – what people respect, in Slytherin, is the ability to amass loyalty. That’s why there’s always a defacto leader, and that defacto leader isn’t always a seventh year. Lucius Malfoy, for instance, was pretty much in power from the time he entered Hogwarts (although Sirius refuses to think of it that way) until he was toppled in his seventh year by a second year newcomer, and now Lestrange is in the last term of his seventh year and the entire House is holding its breath, waiting for the power vacuum to be filled. 

Of course, Snape says, it will have to be either Sirius or Nasha, who is a fifth year. Sirius because he’s a male member of the Black line, the oldest at the school, and, of course, because he’s affable and charming and people like him, or Nasha, whose family is equally old and pureblooded and at that point Sirius stops listening, because Nasha likes to toss her hair and scoff at him like he’s beneath her, because he’s friends with Snape who is unfortunately a half-blood.

But when Regulus runs to find him, it’s not about Nasha. “Nott got slammed in the head with Yaxley’s bat and fell off his broom and now he swears he’s part duck-“ he starts, and Sirius is confused for a moment because usually Regulus isn’t the one getting excited over random acts of Quidditch-based violence, but then he realizes and he can’t help but grin, “-and now they’re short a beater and it’s an emergency and Yaxley demanded I come get you _right away_ -“

And he’s running before Regulus can even finish, and he’s coming in through the door of the dungeons when he slips on something, and he’s launched facefirst into stone and something wet and disgusting and _sticky-_

Is that mud?

He looks at his hands, confused for an instant, wondering what happened, and why he’s covered in mud (and he is, covered in it, doused in it) when he looks up to see Nasha Max looking down at him, tossing her long hair and crossing her arms. “Oh,” she says in her most affected manner, “Poor little Sirius Black, don’t you like the mud now that you can see it?”

It’s so absurdly ridiculous – first off, Sirius is only a second year but even he knows how utterly and profoundly stupid and in poor taste this particular prank is, but moreso, this is pandering, plain and simple.

But it doesn’t mean that Sirius enjoys the sound of laughter, the taste of mud, or the bitter feeling in his stomach that _his own brother was involved_. Nasha Max may be pureblood, he decides, but there is no way that she is more devious than any son of Orion Black’s on a good day, let alone on most days where she’s simply just popular for being pretty and haughty.

He’s reminded, suddenly, of his first day in potions, and he stands up. Nasha, stupidly enough, thinks she’s won, and _turned her back to him_. Although someone warns her with a gasp and a point (he’ll deal with that particular disloyalty later, and it’s funny how at that moment he started thinking of everything in actions of loyalty and betrayal) he smashes enough mud into her hair that she screams, and the sound is the best thing that Sirius has ever heard.

“Sorry, Nasha,” he says with the most charming smile he has, “But it seems you have mud in your hair.”

After that, it’s almost a joke, how easy it is. Nasha Max crumbles like a house of cards after just a month long campaign – apparently she thought that since he was a second year, it would be easy. But no one does vengeance quite like a Black, and Sirius learned how to turn his temper from something hot and blazing, screaming and furious, into something cold and sharp like the blade of a knife. Of course, the incident with the mermaid and the watermelon may have been going too far, but Sirius has never been one to reign himself in, if the opportunity presented itself. He focuses on Nasha first, and then turns to Regulus.

It’s late at night when he casts a silencing charm over Regulus’ bed, and pins his brother with the end of his wand. “Little brother,” he says, and Regulus knows too well what follows something like that, “it’s time for me to pay you back for your little joke on me.”

Regulus is only a first year but Sirius doesn’t care. He’s almost sobbing – not quite, because Regulus is a member of the House of Black, too – when he blurts out, “She made me!”

“You should have said no,” Sirius replies, and he’s not at all surprised that Regulus knows exactly why he’s here. “You, _of all people_ ,” he says, and when they find Regulus in a makeshift pig pen in the Great Hall, complete with a pig nose and ears (and a tail, but that’s harder to see) the next morning, Sirius is slightly pleased when he hears that if he’s willing to do that to his own brother, what is he likely to do to everyone else?

~~~~~

Tibby, for reasons Remus isn’t sure of, has followed him up the stairs; or, at least, she’s managed her apparations to exactly where she can follow Remus up the stairs. “I’m sorry, am I in your way?”

“Master Remus is not in Tibby’s way,” she replies, in that strange house elf cadence where they never seem to just speak. They make Remus a little nervous, because thanking them and being polite always seems to turn into an hour-long affair of weeping about gratitude on their part, and because he gets uncomfortable with the institutionalized slavery of an entire race, even one that seems to enjoy it.

Tibby’s ears wiggle a bit as she goes down the hall to Black’s bedroom and turns to keep an eye on him as he’s about to enter the bedroom he slept in, when suddenly she’s wide-eyed (even wider-eyed) and she holds up her hands, and Remus is apparated against his will into a very cramped space that Remus assumes is a closet.

He finds that he can see, except that when he looks forward, he realizes he’s looking down into Sirius Black’s reception area, and he’s in some kind of crawl space in the roof. It’s sheer luck – or maybe an intense sense of self-preservation – that keeps him from apparating out, because he hears a pounding on the door. 

Tibby opens it and she’s immediately punted – that’s the only word for what happens – across the hall, and there’s a loud, “Cousin, cousin come _now_!”

Remus recognizes the voice, but not because he actually knows the person it’s attached to. It was a very bad night that he had a run-in with Bellatrix Lestrange, and Remus’ blood runs cold, because she’s marching into the room and Remus realizes just how _not safe_ this particular safehouse actually is, if Bellatrix knows it’s here.

Black comes out of the kitchen, no longer covered in mud. Remus can see he’s rolled his sleeves up, and he can see his forearms, where there’s no telltale mark of loyalty. He can’t see Black’s face, but his voice is irritated enough. “I don’t want you here,” he says, crossing his arms.

“Have you considered my offer, my little cousin, or are you going to tell me _no_ again?” Bellatrix asks, and Remus can feel his heart pounding. 

Black doesn’t seem to be impressed – or intimidated. “You do know it’s broad daylight, and you’re a wanted woman, don’t you? What you’re doing is tantamount to suicide,” he points out.

She doesn’t seem to either be impressed, or to care that much, because she is walking around the reception like she owns it, and Remus is suddenly aware of the loudness of his own breathing. “The Dark Lord is not pleased you have kept refusing him.”

“Yes, well I’m not pleased at the level of insanity you seem so intent on tracking into my house, Bellatrix, but we both know that my family lines and blood purity are good enough that you won’t kill me as long as I don’t get involved with the other side, don’t we?” Black seems to be very blasé about the fact that a psychopath is standing in his doorway and just punted his house-elf across the front hall.

But then, Remus supposes, she is family.

Bellatrix has her wand out then, fast as a snake, and Sirius has his in response and remarkably is _faster_ with his shout of “ _Expelliarmus_!” 

Her wand goes flying and he catches it and dodges her heavy-handed slap in the same motion, and Remus is downright impressed. He keeps his hands over his mouth and breathes in low, shallow breaths. Black holds her wand and looks at it as he keeps dancing back from her grip, and he mutters something low and soft and she freezes as the spell hits her. “Bella,” he says, and his voice is that cruel, creepingly cold tone that Remus remembers from school, “I know you think I’m an asset, and frankly, yes, of course I am. But I’m _not interested._ Frankly, I’m lying with my parents on this matter. Come here again, cross me again, and cousin or no, I’ll rearrange your insides until you shit out your mouth, Dark Lord be damned.”

Remus can feel the terror run up his spine, and he’s not even being menaced.

“I’ll keep up the deal – and I do, I don’t leave the house – and everything will remain as it is. Now.” He flicks his wand until she’s outside, and calls out, “Tibby, send Mistress Bella back to wherever it is she came from, will you?”

As a parting gift, Black places her wand back in her hand, and there’s a crack as she disapparates away. Black looks up and sits on the floor. 

They sit like that for a long time, and Remus realizes that Tibby, for all her house-elfishness, for all the mutterings and squeakings, looks clean and fed and well-cared for, even though Black seems to make it a habit of making her work her fingers to the bone, she seems to genuinely like him. From school, Remus remembers that Black never liked the house-elves, but this one, he at least stands. Stands enough to tell her to go compose herself from the kicking in an imperious tone, but it is what it is. Small favors. Tiny reminders of humanity.

An hour goes by and Remus can no longer feel any of his body parts, but then without warning there’s a crack and he’s apparated to the kitchen table, where he immediately falls to the ground from the chair and stretches all his cramped limbs. He hears footsteps and swears a bit. “My, I’ve never heard you use that particular string of words before,” Black says, looking down at him. “I wanted to make sure she didn’t come back before we let you down.”

“They know you-“

“Of course they know I live here. This was my uncle’s house, before he died.” Black sounds almost sad, but it’s hard to tell from where Remus is sure his bones are now melting into the floor. “But like you heard – I don’t leave, and I don’t appear to interfere, so they leave me alone. Blood counts with these people.”

Remus thinks this is absurdly dangerous, and stares up, “What if they just apparate-?”

“Can’t. My uncle was not quite as paranoid as my father is, but suffice to say, the house is not easily entered. And Tibby, who, by the way, _did very well_ ,” he says that extra loudly, as if the house-elf might be listening, and Remus supposes that she probably is, “knows whenever someone opens the front gate.” He shrugs. “So here we are.”

Remus stares up at him. “So here we are,” he says, and his head hits the back of the floor and almost blacks out. “Just, ah, leave me here another moment.”

Black just looks down and rolls his eyes before he reaches to help him up.

~~~~~

It’s November of their fifth year when their worlds crashed in a way that it had never quite managed before.

Before it had been war – outright or subversive. War with Sirius Black only meant one thing, which was war with the entirety of Slytherin. Sometimes the rest of the house, from first years right on up the line, just seemed like extensions of some horrible monster with Black at the base. His moods dictated their moods, which in turn, dictated how they treated the rest of the school. Everyone knew it. The teachers knew it and targeted him for penalty or praise, depending on how he had the rest of the house behaving. It was a strange method, but then Slytherin was good at breaking lines that teachers either didn’t mind or didn’t notice.

James, on the other hand, was no good at subtle, and half of Gryffindor wanted his head mounted on a spike from a turret at the same time that the other half adored him for being funny and sociable. But Sirius always seemed to have a particular spot for tormenting Remus.

It was always mild – shocks during Defense Against the Dark Arts, hexes in the corridors, torn bags, junk pranks, nothing terrible – just annoying. Then, one day in September, it all stopped, and Black seemed to turn his attention elsewhere.

And then it’s November, and Remus is sitting under the trapdoor under the Whomping Willow. He hears the tree get frantic and then stop moving, and he doesn’t even realize that it’s early, too early, really, for the school matron. 

He opens the door and is staring at the smug face of Sirius Black, and he feels like his heart is seizing in his chest, closing, like he can’t breathe. James and Peter know but they’ve never been out here, never done this, not even after everything is safe, and certainly never _stopped the Willow_.

Maybe this is a nightmare. It certainly bears all the hallmarks of one.

“You know,” Black says, his green and silver scarf wrapped mostly around his head. It’s cold out here, there’s frost on the ground, the sun is barely up, “You really should be a little less obvious about the dates you’re _sick_.”

Remus considers his options, and doesn’t like either of them. He could lie, but without a doubt, Black knows already, if he’s standing here on this ridiculous hill under the infernal tree that was supposed to keep this particular secret. Or he could tell the truth, and threaten him. Well, from bad ideas to worse. So naturally he picks option C, which is to stand like an idiot, staring at Sirius Black and hating the part of him that thinks that his boy is so sinfully attractive that the devil would probably be jealous.

It’s an obnoxiously loud part of him, too. Remus sometimes wishes he had skipped from 11 to 45, to avoid it.

“Are you even awake, Lupin?” Black asks, like he’s terminally irritated that Remus is not rising to his bait. “Are you going to say anything?”

Remus actually doesn’t know what to say. He’s never really experienced _speechless_ in quite this form before, but finally he manages to dredge up some words. “What do you want?” he asks, feeling horrible that he’s asking it. Later, years later, he’ll remember this moment as the moment he lost his soul instead of the moment he went running for Dumbledore. Really, what was he thinking?

Black just laughs. Remus isn’t sure he’s ever heard this particular sound before, but it makes him even more beautiful, and it isn’t nearly cackling and evil enough to belong to someone who is standing in front of him and probably lining up something _awful_ as extortion, so Remus continues. “I don’t have money, and I’m not all that popular, so I don’t know what I could give to you that-“

“Fortunately for you, I have both of those things in spades,” Black interrupts, and moves forward to fix Remus’ buttons, which is confusing because why does Black do that, and also, who knew that he knew how buttons worked? Remus thinks a rather ungenerous thought, which is that Snape likely dresses him like some kind of valet in a Jane Austen novel, with the way he follows Black around. “I just want some favors. Nothing dangerous, I promise.”

His heart hammers, stammers in his chest. “I won’t betray anything about James and Peter,” he states right up front, although he’s not sure if that could be tested. It could, he worries. What kind of friend would he be then?

But Black doesn’t seem to mind that at all. In fact, he smiles, and it’s not sly or smirky or smug, it’s pleased, like Remus finally said something that Black wanted to hear. “Don’t worry. Nothing involving the ongoing campaign between our houses,” he adds, then, like a balm to soothe a stab wound to the chest. 

“Are you saying you’ll tell if I don’t agree?”

“I’m not saying anything of the sort.” He finishes, and Remus has never been more terrified of a person since the night that he met Fenrir Greyback. It’s funny. This is a boy playing a game – a stupid, dangerous game, a game that Remus should see an easy out of, but he can’t, he doesn’t know how to outmaneuver here and he can’t figure out why, but he’s as terrifying as a werewolf who doesn’t care who he harms. Black continues. “But you’ll think it over. We’ll work something out.” He lifts a hand up, but the gesture is aborted, and he just takes a step back. “Oh, and Remus?”

Remus looks up, then from where he’s staring at the ground by Black’s feet, the shame and terror warring in his stomach. “Yes?” he asks, politely, because he doesn’t know what to do. 

“Let’s not get anyone else involved, hm? I’ll speak to you soon,” Black says, and starts heading up, up and back to the castle.

It’s funny, but it’s at that moment, that precise moment, that what Remus hears isn’t “Don’t tell a teacher,” but “I won’t tell a soul,” and maybe that’s where this problem really starts.

~~~~~~

For four days, Sirius does his absolute best to keep to his usual routine, which is generally to wake up, eat breakfast, read the papers, make notes of who is still alive, avoid his father’s owls, write some, eat lunch, then try and write some more in the afternoon before having an explosive temper tantrum in the basement about how utterly bored he is. Sometimes he’ll fit time in to try and read a book, but really, who has time to read a book when one is exiled in a house with a clinically perky house-elf and a terminally attractive werewolf?

Of course, the latter is only a recent symptom of Sirius’ life. Lupin seems to involve himself in everything that Sirius is trying to do – probably because he, too, is unfortunately bored out of his wits, and he doesn’t have Sirius’ long (two years, two years, _two years_ ) practice at being trapped inside a house. Sirius goes to eat breakfast and Tibby is giggling ( _giggling_!) over Lupin’s tea, which he refuses to take upstairs in his bed, like a normal person. He goes to read the paper and the owl has been paid with the knuts he leaves in the bowl by the window for just that reason. His father’s letters are inexplicably piled up (because Lupin couldn’t just destroy them, no, he had to be polite about _that_ , that chore he had to leave). 

He goes to write and Lupin sits in the corner watching the outside world or reading a book or drinking tea – honestly the way the man drinks tea should be made illegal, and how did this become Sirius Black’s life: watching Remus Lupin drink tea and page through one of the books he’s found in the house and stare at the fireplace like any moment it might just drop a letter from Dumbledore freeing him from all this.

“Don’t you have _anything_ to do?” Sirius asks irritably on the afternoon of day four, just as Tibby is retreating from cleaning the parlor and into the kitchen. “Or do you just sit about your own home imitating a middle-aged man?”

Remus looks over from where he’s reading a copy of a _witch romance novel_ , really, how did that even _get into the house_ , that must have been one of Alphard’s old books, which were supposedly boxed up in the attic. Tibby must have unboxed them for Remus. She wasn’t meant to, she’s not meant to go up there at _all_ , because it’s full of all of Sirius’ old schoolthings and Sirius doesn’t like to look at them. “This, coming from the man who by all accounts hasn’t left his house in two years?”

“ _I_ am independently wealthy, if I have eccentricities and choose to be a hermit locked up with a house elf, then that’s what’s going to happen. Stop looking at my fireplace, you’ll give it a complex.” That doesn’t even make sense. 

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Remus points out. “What do you suggest I do? Because I don’t remember you having an explosive temper but considering what I hear coming from your basement right before tea,” he retains such charming northern tendencies, it would put Sirius’ teeth on edge except that it doesn’t, “that’s changed since school.”

Sirius gets up, almost ready to leave the room, but he just can’t, as if his feet are unable to carry him out the door. The walls are closing in more than ever, more than they ever did even at the worst of times. “I don’t yell,” he says, as if that explains everything.

“And it’s likely miraculous,” Lupin quips back, going back to his book. 

Sirius is about to reply, something smart and funny and clever and _nasty_ , but before he can there’s a knock and they both look up and over to the door at the same time. “Keep hold of that thought,” Sirius says, as he makes his way to the door and opens it. Tibby didn’t apparate Remus into the holding area, so it must be an Order member, or perhaps a muggle salesman – there’s one that comes by at least twice a month because he fancies tea and Sirius is so perpetually bored that they actually have something of a friendship going.

It’s not, sadly enough, Henry, but it is Arthur Weasley, who looks flustered and exhausted and who Sirius gives a once over before asking the standard set of questions, looking considerably annoyed at this, and rolling his eyes at least once before he allows him in the house. “I sent my patronus four days ago,” Sirius says as soon as the door’s closed.

“The twins have some kind of gripe, Molly hasn’t let me out of the house at all outside of work. Ah, Remus!” he says, when he spots Remus, who is peering around the corner. “Let’s get to it, then, quickly, yes? Sirius I hope your Floo-“

“This house isn’t connected, sorry, but I can ask Tibby to apparate you from the garden,” Sirius interrupts.

Remus looks confused for a moment and Sirius looks away quickly, before he can engage with that particular bundle of emotions, because he knows exactly how this plays out. Remus thinks, or must think, that Arthur is here for _him_ \- he is, in a way. But not the way that Remus hopes. Arthur musters all the cheer he can, though. “Ah, well, no matter! Let’s get along with it, then! Remus,” he says as though he is some kind of father figure, all portly and full of gifts for Christmas, “the basement has a door, which leads to Sirius Black’s storeroom and office of the Order of the Phoenix.”

He finishes and looks up, pleased. “All right then, I have some words for Remus, and then I’ll be off, I’ll just see myself out your garden, right?”

Sirius feels himself move, but it seems to just be out of habit, because when he sits he’s not entirely sure how he moved from point a to point b. He covers it up with a crabby wave of his hand and Remus goes off, and Sirius can finally get back to work.

Of course, nothing gets accomplished, and nothing will, until Remus Lupin finally _leaves_.

~~~~~

While he had met Remus in their first year, almost on their first day, the fascination didn’t really begin until their third year. Every now and again he sees him and is struck by how he always looks exhausted, how he always looks like he’s on the edge of falling asleep or passing out, but how he sticks to Potter ( _Potter_ ) like glue, and how Potter, who is the kind of boy that Sirius might have been friends with in another kind of life, is smarter with Lupin around.

But they both have their generals. Snape is a general of his own, quippy, always testing the ends of his lead, seeing how far he can go before Sirius snaps him back. It is the most dangerous sort of friend to have, and Sirius knows it, in his position – the kind of friend who undermines authority. Ever since the pig nose incident, Regulus has fallen in line, but he’s more stuck up than Sirius, who just doesn’t _care_ a majority of the time.

Lupin is a fantastic distraction. He is clearly Potter’s favored friend, smart, well-liked, but quiet and withdrawn, and all too easy to make miserable with just a few well-chosen hexes, and nasty words. And the best part about it is how much Snape doesn’t seem to like it. “Don’t you have better things to occupy your time with?”

“Now, now, we’re not _jealous_ , are we?” Sirius says on a fine spring day. It’s unseasonably warm, the first true day of spring, and no one is revising even though everyone should be. Half the school is out by the lake, books out as if they actually intend to read them, and Sirius has just cast the sort of hex that leaves marks and bruises where no one can see on Lupin, who has his tired eyes closed but his most irritated face on, but as usual, he doesn’t tell. He doesn’t even tell Potter, who is trying to catch Evan’s eye.

Snape’s watching that, as well. “You keep staring at that little mudblood of yours, but I think you’re losing her,” Sirius tries, and sends another tricky little hex Lupin’s way, but Snape ignores the dig on Evans and focuses instead on Lupin, who is starting to look annoyed enough that he might leave, but he still isn’t saying a word to anyone.

“You could do a lot _worse_ ,” Snape says, of Lupin, naturally, because he is the topic of many of their conversations. “You could do worse and you don’t. You could do to him what you did to-“

“I think it bothers you more that you think I’m _kind_ to him,” Sirius muses, in interruption, because he knows exactly who and what Snape is thinking of and that matter does not get spoken of aloud where anyone can hear. 

Snape just looks at Sirius, with his nose in the air, that sort of impudent look that makes him seem so desperately pureblooded, except he tries to damned hard. “If he were a Slytherin, you would have already destroyed him.”

“If he were a Slytherin,” Sirius points out, “I wouldn’t have to.” He gets halfway up, and considers things for a moment. “And it doesn’t matter what I do, or who I do it to, because you’ll go along with it.” He lifts his wand, aims at Potter, and Snape raises both eyebrows, because well, that’s nothing new. But then quickly, with the kind of precision needed to survive both his schoolboy ambitions and living with his mother, he snaps the curse over, barking “ _Levicorpus_!”

Lily Evans didn’t even have time to blink before she went in the air, and Sirius doesn’t even watch the panic ensue. He turns to the boy who is his best friend and watches as his face pales, but he doesn’t run over, he doesn’t move. He just sits there, still, fuming, because at the end of the day they both know where his loyalties lie.

That night, Evans announces she’s never speaking to Snape again, and Sirius just shrugs. “You’re better off with some other girl, if you have any ambition at all.” Severus looks like he’s about to punch Sirius, but he doesn’t. Instead he tosses some OWL materials his way.

Maybe it’s the fact that they’ve been fighting over him, or maybe it’s just good timing, but he takes those materials and is a third of the way in when it smacks him in the face. _No._

He stands up and _paces_ , because it’s ridiculous. Dumbledore would never – Sirius may not like him much, may think he’s soft and sometimes altogether incomprehensibly mad, but the man isn’t _stupid_ , as much as Orion Black would have him believe he is. “Pass me a calendar,” he says to no one in particular, and one materializes in his hand a moment later, and Sirius begins to set dates he can remember to days where Lupin was, for some reason or another, sick, or missing, or simply not in class. The day of their Charms examination. December, when everyone was at the Yule Ball and Evans was wearing the same green dress that Della Max (Nasha’s much more fortunate younger sister) wore, and Sirius almost caused a riot when he was caught with his hand up her skirt because he was trying to convince her that it was perfectly all right, and the dress was scads prettier on her anyway. 

The astronomy class in September where they had gone over Orion, Sirius, and Regulus.

The history of magic exam in February.

Sirius feels like he’ll actually be sick, like he’s on the tail end of the worst kind of hangover. What the hell is going on here? What the hell is Dumbledore thinking - _is_ the old man thinking? Who sets up a _werewolf_ \- and the thought, the thought of being _touched_ by one, the thought of it in the hallway just walking around like it’s nothing, like it’s something human, it’s worse by far than anything else, than the school being overrun with muggle born students-

A werewolf.

A bloody werewolf.

He’s not sure, and he doesn’t want to be sure. The obsession with Remus Lupin has to end.

But it doesn’t end.

And for Sirius, that’s where the problem starts.

~~~~~

Remus has only met Arthur Weasley in a furtive, unsure way. He had already left school by the time that Remus arrived, and so this meeting is strange, because it’s like dealing with a stranger who knows intimate details, if only because in the Order, secrets are things to be hoarded like candies, and only the most precious ones aren’t shared around. Marlene has a mouth on her, and no fear of reprisal, at least about other order members.

He’s jovial enough. “Listen, I don’t know exactly what it is you have,” he begins, and Remus is about to interrupt when Arthur waves his hand, “no, no, I don’t want to know, it’s probably for the best, what with the children,” he adds, “but I have two messages. One more severe than the other. Which would you like first?”

“You have a message from James and Lily?” he asks, because he knows that they’re the most likely to try and get ahold of him. 

Arthur smiles fondly, “Yes, they send their hellos, and say that they expect to see you shortly, and not to worry. James in particular wanted me to assure you that he’s already setting up things so you can be moved to theirs. I’m afraid that’s the more cheerful of the notes, though.”

“Go on, what did Dumbledore say, then?” Remus rubs his forehead in an old gesture, as if the pressure will stop an oncoming headache. It doesn’t, not really. These habits are hard to break.

Arthur seems to have one as well because he mirrors Remus for a moment. “He says you’re to stay here, for as long as possible. Black’s basement should do the trick. Don’t move with the package, he says,” Arthur relays, and gives him a sad sort of smile. “I’m sorry, I know that isn’t at all what you wanted to hear.”

“No, no,” Remus says, although he’s right. “Bearer of bad news, that’s all. Ah, you ought to get home, before your wife –“

He doesn’t have to finish, because Arthur pats him on the shoulder and nods, and heads into the garden. “Would you?”

“Tibby?” Remus says, and a moment later the house-elf is apparating Arthur Weasley away. Remus hates those kinds of conversations, the kind that say nothing. It takes another moment, longer than Remus would have liked, before he’s stomping into Black’s sitting room where Black is staring glumly out the front window and he manages not to yell (but only just), “Why is Arthur Weasley the secret-keeper for this house?”

“Not for the house,” Black replies, “Just for my bottom room. And who would you suggest? My brother, perhaps?” 

“ _Why_?” Remus asks, although he knows it’s a dumb question, and he’ll probably get mocked for it.

Black doesn’t mock him. Instead he turns and gives Remus his full attention, and Remus feels his stomach contract, squeeze tightly into a knotted fist in the base of his abdomen. It’s as though he’s fifteen again, and they’re standing, cold, on the hill under the Whomping Willow and for the first time he feels _visible_.

Finally, Black speaks. “Because I owe you, don’t I?”

Remus doesn’t move, just curls his hands against the base of his stomach. “Yes,” he replies, quiet. “Yes, you do.”

~~~~~

It turns out that above being manipulative and cruel, and utterly controlling, Sirius Black is also remarkably patient. Remus knew that, of course, but didn’t expect it to last so long, or perhaps that was his own impatience showing itself, but it’s three weeks and almost an entire moon cycle before he hears from him again.

“Lupin,” he says one day, after Charms, just before lunch, as they’re leaving the classroom, “a word.”

James turns to stare, and so does Snape. Peter crashes right into Remus, frowning. “What do you want?” Peter, of all people, asks first, breaking the tableau.

“To speak to Lupin, obviously. It’s private. Run along.”

No one runs along. Snape’s face drains of color, turns pastier than usual for a moment before it starts going red. James doesn’t look at all pleased. “Anything you need to say to Remus can be said in front of us.”

At that, Remus’ heart starts a dance in his chest, and it is surprisingly painful for something so unrelated to his condition. Black opens his mouth but Remus is the one who speaks first. “It’s all right, I’ll meet you two downstairs.”

James is going to argue, he can tell, but Remus just gives a long, drawn out sigh. “Honestly, James, just _go_ , I’ll be right there.” Later James will ask, but Remus won’t respond.

James grabs Peter by the scarf and tugs, and Peter watches and complains, “We shouldn’t _leave_ -“ but they leave anyway, the both of them. 

Now it’s just Snape, Snape who is watching and waiting and his face is getting more irritated by the second. “Leave, Severus,” Black says, not looking at him but rather at Remus, and at some distant point off to the right. 

“This is a bad id-“

“No. A bad idea would be making me repeat myself.” Black looks over at Snape, and Remus feels the heat of his attention go, drift away. “You know I hate doing that.”

They’re trite words, they’re not threatening, it’s like something out of a novel, but the temperature in the hall feels like it has dropped ten degrees, at least, like a dementor has suddenly manifested just outside their range of vision. Snape looks like a leashed dog that really truly wishes to snap and bite, but in the end he flicks his robes out of the way and goes, and shoots Remus a glance. It only lasts a second, but it says enough; he won’t lose his favored spot.

“What do you want?” Remus asks, wearily, pressing his hand against his forehead and rubbing. 

“We’re going for a walk, you and I,” Black says, like they’re _friends_ , as though there is nothing wrong with this picture. “Towards the prefects bath.”

“Is that seriously what you want? I could give you the password, it would save us both time.” Remus hopes that this is the end of it; a pass into a place Black usually doesn’t go. 

“And yet, we’re going together,” Black says. “Off you go, you first.”

They walk in silence for a while, passing students who look back, as if confused by this tableau. Remus doesn’t blame them, he’s rather confused himself. But the silence keeps going until they’ve reached a floor with no one on it, and Remus opens his mouth again. “Black, why are you doing this?”

“Because I want to. Do you know how boring Slytherin is?” Black steps up next to him, and Remus tilts his head. What? “It’s the same thing, every day, it’s so _easy_.”

“So I’m your entertainment?”

Black laughs, and it’s the kind of sound that makes Remus’ skin crawl, almost. Not because it’s ugly, but because there’s something so hollow about it. Like the semblance of a person, instead of a real one. “You’re enough, let’s say that.”

“I’m boring,” Remus argues as they both jump one of the trick steps.

Black looks over and him. “If you are, you shouldn’t actually _tell_ me that. Then entertainment might just come from writing my father about you.”

“Don’t-“ Remus yelps, and then he gets his heart back into his control. “What is the matter with you? Why do you even care? I haven’t hurt anyone. I’m just a boy-“

“Yes, yes, a boy who has a condition, I’m sure. Because the entire Wizarding World is just biased, even those that don’t know better. One of you has never done anything that might merit this, have they?” Black keeps walking, and Remus realizes, now, that he’s following.

“It’s prejudice-“

“Whatever, I didn’t bring you up here to have a conversation about werewolf rights.” Black says, and Remus realizes how loud the word _werewolf_ sounds, like a firecracker, snapping and popping through the hall.

A firecracker, and he’s not sure why he’s here at all, to be honest. “Why am I here? _What do you want?_ ”

Black takes a moment and relaxes back in the hallway. “I wanted to see if you would do it.”

“Do _what_?” Remus demands, and he’s about to argue, but Black doesn’t say a word. Instead he walks away, as if this wasn’t anything, and Remus is about to follow but instead stares at Black’s retreating figure. It doesn’t make sense. It’s nothing that he expected. It was a _walk_ , one that ate up his time, that made him late for food, that inconvenienced him, annoyed his friends, showed _something_ to someone, but that was it.

There’s no rhyme or reason, none at all, he huffs, and makes his way back down the stairs, getting a foot caught in the trick step, throwing his papers and bag down the steps, and making Sir Nearly-Headless Nick tut in disapproval. “I expected better from you, Mr. Lupin,” he says, floating down the stair.

“You’re not alone – could you at least get me some _help_?” he calls after him.

~~~~~

There aren’t many places to hide inside his house – well, no, that’s not true. There are several hiding places, not all of them Alphard’s – his basement, of course, the cupboard above the door, then the space under the stairs but above the cupboard under the stairs, the secret compartment beneath his own bed. But there aren’t many places to hide that don’t involve either moving furniture or getting Tibby to apparate him into them. Alphard’s house is not like his mother’s house (a fact that Sirius thanks Merlin for on a daily basis) which is much larger, having more children to care for (as opposed to Alphard’s _no_ children at all) and possibly because Orion Black was the heir, just as Sirius is the heir now. 

Although the prospect of owning Grimmauld Place is a dank one. Just the thought of Kreacher gives Sirius the shakes, some days.

While the days pass and Lupin doesn’t really speak to him, and he doesn’t speak to Lupin, and while the house is big enough for more than two people (really it could accommodate four quite comfortably) they always seem to be dodging each other, and the more time they spend together, the more that Sirius remembers what he _liked_ about Lupin. 

He pours his tea at exactly three-fifty, so it has ten minutes to cool before he drinks it. He’s fussy with his books and his papers and his things. He can’t bear to accept any charity outside of what he feels Dumbledore may be offering Sirius in exchange for being a safehouse, and Sirius is loathe to correct him that he isn’t getting paid for this particular service. Sirius watches the way he waves his wand, just that tiny little flourish at the beginning that is somewhat of a signature, the way he starts to nap when his exhaustion overwhelms him, the way that he rebuffs Tibby’s growing affections with a self-deprecating laugh.

So what he means by _there aren’t many places to hide_ what he would really like is to not have to notice those things. It was so much easier when it was just him and Tibby and they would get on each other’s nerves and he would just write and write and write until papers had nowhere to go but to his editor.

Remus is asleep on the couch, and the rain has turned to snow. It’s dusting carefully outside, icing over the street. North London – Islington, really, _properly_ , at any rate – isn’t ugly by far. It’s a pleasant little street. It’s a pleasant place. Alphard had good taste in that, at least. When it snows it almost looks _charming_.

Sirius is just trying to write, but Remus is asleep on the couch, and there is snow falling, and Tibby is cooking something warm and delicious, and it’s all so repulsively domestic, as though they have forgotten there’s a war on or that Remus would rather choke on his own spittle and die a painful death drowning that way than be domestic with Sirius. 

But he stands up anyway and takes a blanket from where he left it on the other couch and moves to settle it over Remus, who sleeps on for another moment. He is about to step back when Remus mutters, “I’m not a child, I can get a blanket if I want one.”

The illusion of domesticity is a fleeting thing. “You were fast asleep.”

“How does that deage me, please, inform me,” he snaps back, and it isn’t fair, a man shouldn’t be able to be so sharp just as he wakes.

Sirius can feel pressure building behind his eyes. It’s either irritation or distemper, and neither is a good thing. They’ve been inside too long. He’s been inside too long, and Lupin has probably not been inside so often since they left school. “I was trying to be nice,” Sirius argues, but the pressure doesn’t go away.

Lupin seems placated by that, by the imagery of kindness, by the delusion of it, because he puckers his hand around the blanket. “It’s snowing,” he says, and closes his eyes. “It must be blanketed, up in Scotland.”

Sirius sits next to him, then, and Lupin moves a bit, so they are sitting side by side. “There’s no word from Dumbledore,” he says.

“I’ll be here a while, I’m afraid,” Lupin replies, “I’m carrying something that cannot be transported easily.”

There is a prickle up Sirius’ spine. He didn’t know that – he thought it was information, not something concrete, not something that could actually cause a problem. Not something that could be tracked. “Don’t tell me,” he says, quickly, where once he would have demanded to know. Where once he would have needed to control it. 

Lupin looks at him as though he’s said something terribly odd. “I didn’t intend to, you know. I was never going to tell you anything.” He moves, then, and kisses him on the mouth, and then moves away. He looks terribly embarrassed, like he’s shown a card he didn’t want to show.

Sirius cannot bring himself to exhale. It’s as though he has taken his first full breath in five years, and if he breathes out, all the oxygen will leave the room, the house, the planet.

~~~~~

Sirius never asks for anything tremendous. Not at first. Really, this game is more about trying to prove to himself that he is both unafraid of werewolves and utterly uncaring about blood status, that he can both be a Black and above everyone and that he can’t be tainted by the company of something worse than a mudblood.

He meets Lupin outside of Hogsmeade. It’s a late winter, still snowing into March, and everyone is miserable; Regulus didn’t even want to go out to the village, stating that he was sick of slipping and sliding across half-melted snow and tamped-down ice. Snape went, and spent most of it brooding outside of the pub, pacing up and down the street, and being moody inside of Honeydukes while everyone else was trying to stock up on candy, but Sirius left him there almost an hour ago.

Lupin isn’t late, but he looks miserable and cold, his scarf snug around his neck and his cloak – looking a little shabby, like maybe he slept in it, wrapped firmly around his shoulders. He even has a pair of earmuffs.

“You look ridiculous.”

“Hello to you too, Black,” he says. They’ve reached a point where they just talk, at least, some of the time. “What do you want today, it’s too cold to spend all our time outside, so I hope a jaunt indoors is warranted.”

Just for that, Sirius decides that they will _not_ be going inside, although he’s not exactly warm himself. “Walk.”

Lupin doesn’t seem particularly pleased by that, if his snorting is any indication. “Honestly, what do you want with me? You never seem to do anything, you never ask for anything, are you that desperate for a friend?”

“Don’t let your high Gryffindor values down now, please, continue to insinuate I am lacking friends,” Sirius says in reply, avoiding puddles of ice. “Stop analyzing this.”

Lupin doesn’t stop. “I’m trying to find out exactly what you expect out of this – whatever this is, why you seem so interested in me. I’m boring. Even my-“ his voice dips low, although there is no one around, “- _condition_ is boring, most of the time. I get good marks. I’m not in your house. We have nothing in common.”

“You keep saying that as if that’s going to make me change my mind,” Sirius replies, looking over at him. The castle in the distance is growing bigger – this walk is taking longer than usual, though, because Sirius keeps avoiding puddles and Lupin keeps jumping over them, and then trying not to slip. “You’re not.” And then a pause. “Also marks have nothing to do with this, my marks are _excellent_ -“

“You have friends. Friends who I presume actually like you.” Remus interrupts, because this is not about who is top of their class.

“Are you saying you don’t like me?” Sirius isn’t offended, or even remotely surprised, but he is slightly impressed that someone finally admitted to it, when he suspects that half the school and more than half of his own house dislikes him.

But Lupin stammers, “You have your brother. You have everything. You’re rich and popular and well-liked by professors, you have girls hanging over your breath, but for some reason this makes you feel like – like what, Black? Like you have control?”

“I do have control,” Sirius snaps back, and slips a bit on an ice puddle. 

Lupin actually catches his arm. “Clearly,” he says, and Sirius yanks his arm away. “Just tell me what you want so I can go on with my life.”

Sirius looks up and the castle seems even further away, although they’re back on the grounds, now. “I want you to drop this,” he says, suddenly irritated that he cannot control this conversation. This isn’t what he wanted, and he slips again, and Lupin catches him _again._

“What is this about, Black? Are you lonely?”

“I’m not lonely!” he says, maybe a touch too loudly, and he closes his mouth quickly. His mother yells like that, his mother yells all the time, she loses her temper just like that. They all have bad tempers, all the Blacks, and maybe Sirius’ is quickly becoming the most famously awful one, except that he doesn’t yell, he never yells, and that’s why it’s so dangerous. 

Lupin gapes, honestly _gapes,_ like some kind of fish. “You’re lonely.”

Perhaps it’s just bad timing, but suddenly Sirius gets a slushed snowball to the back of the head. It drips, coldly, down the back of his robes and some gets between his skin and his clothes, making everything wet. He turns and sees a trio of first years – maggots – laughing for a second, until one of them realizes who it is that they just pelted with a wad of frozen snow and goes whiter than the ground around them. He feels his gloved hands curl into fists – two Gryffindors and one Hufflepuff, all big eyed and staring, dropping snow and tripping over themselves to run. They fall into the snow.

His wand is in his hand but Lupin’s hands are on his arms. “Don’t,” Lupin says, pleading. “Don’t, just calm down.”

“Don’t touch me,” Sirius _snarls_ , the quiet snarl of an enormous dog who can easily rip out a person’s throat. The only warning he’ll give.

Lupin lets go and the first years are trying to puzzle themselves out, but every time they try to run they go flying, flipping into the air as they slip on hidden sheets of half-melted ice. “Don’t, they were just playing, you’re really angry at me, not at them.”

Sirius hears the words and he knows it’s true, and that icy, stunning logic that he tries to cultivate when he is this angry, so angry that he can no longer see in any color save for red emerges. “Then you do something.”

“What?”

“Do something _now_ , Lupin, or I will,” he says, quiet, bone-cold. “I won’t repeat myself.”

Lupin goes still, his face flushing red, and then his wand is out, and he stomps over, miraculously not slipping on ice. There is no jinx, no hex. He gets them up and says something, something that Sirius cannot hear, and they all look a little bit horrified but run off, and this time they don’t slip or slide or fall at all, but manage to make their way up the path.

Lupin turns back and stomps to Sirius, who has managed to master his anger, at least a little, although mostly it’s tempered by curiosity. “So?”

“I docked them ten points each,” he says, and Sirius’ eyes flick over to the prefect badge on Lupin’s chest. He’s never had a pet prefect before – well, not that the ones in Slytherin actually count, because he doesn’t so much own them as much as he just lets them be for the returned favor. But Lupin isn’t finished. “I won’t hex or jinx people because you’re angry. I won’t turn into a bully for you, do you understand me?”

That makes Sirius look at him, actually look at him for a moment. No one has actually said anything like that to him – not ever. The people in Slytherin who don’t agree with him in a show of blind faith are either too scared or too busy trying to outmaneuver him. No one says anything like that to his face. It’s not done. 

It’s interesting. It makes his anger fade away.

“What if I am?”

“What if you’re what?” Lupin asks, his mouth in a fine, fine line. 

Sirius looks away, suddenly, back at the castle. It looks smaller, but maybe it’s not that it’s far away. Maybe the magic he felt when he was eleven is evaporating now that he knows what’s inside. “Lonely.”

Lupin’s face relaxes, softens, and he sighs. “You could try not tormenting people,” he suggests, as if it’s that simple. 

Sirius refuses to believe he’s that stupid; he’s seen Lupin’s marks. “Well I’m not doing it for fun, am I?” Well, not most of the time. “By all means, if you think of a way to control Slytherin that doesn’t involve my temper, don’t hesitate to suggest it.”

“That sounds exhausting,” Lupin counters, putting away his wand. Sirius finds himself copying the motion, and with those words his shoulders sag. He feels heavy, and he runs a hand through his hair to get rid of the last of the ice. He doesn’t say anything, but Lupin seems to take that silence as affirmation. “Then why do you do it?”

“You can’t possibly be that thick,” Sirius replies. 

Lupin rolls his eyes. “No, remarkably, I’m not, but it hardly seems worth it.”

It has never been a question. It has never been something that Sirius has put a lot of thought into. It was him or it was Regulus, but it would never be Regulus. It would be someone else, someone stronger, someone better than Regulus, who was always more a follower than a leader. “Who would you recommend?”

Lupin goes quiet, and Sirius nods. There is no one else. Well, there is. But they are all bad choices. They keep going towards the castle, and once they get there, Lupin looks over at Sirius, a complicated look on his face. “I don’t want to regret this,” he says, finally, “so don’t make me.” He takes a moment, and nods his head, as if it is suddenly certain. “I’ll be your friend. Not because you know things about me,” he adds, quickly, “but because it seems to me that you need one who isn’t kissing the hem of your robes when you get up in the morning.”

Sirius is affronted, at first, that a werewolf would dare suggest it, that he needs it, but then Lupin is gone, heading up the stairs that would lead him to the Gryffindor dormitory, and Sirius is left standing in the foyer, wondering what happened, and why he doesn’t feel quite as cold as he did just a moment ago.


	2. Interlude:

If questioned, Sirius couldn’t actually explain what it is.

It might be the way that Lupin stands up to him, although that he wouldn’t ever say. They’re alone in the astronomy tower, late at night, and Sirius is watching Canis Major and thinking that this is possibly a futile exercise in control, because Lupin doesn’t ever just quietly sit and think and wait. He’s doing his own homework and there’s a tidy little housekeeping spell that’s cleaning ink that Sirius spilled and he’s avoiding looking at the moon, which is half-full.

“Your friendship is a bit boring, Lupin,” he says, staring at Lupin’s hands and thinking about how they _change_ , how they slice up his skin and his face. How they aren’t always just hands, how sometimes they can’t hold a quill like he’s doing now, and suddenly this is all a little too philosophical for comfort. He looks away, at his own hands.

Lupin doesn’t seem at all bothered by this, though. “Yes, well, yours is quite poisonous most days, so we’ll settle with this for a bit, yes? Why do you like it here so much?”

He doesn’t want to lie to Lupin. He’s not sure when he started to like the way that Lupin smiles, the way that his lips curve slightly when he’s really impressed or pleased. He’s not sure when it started to matter, if he told him the truth or lied.

So he opts for the truth, even though it’s pathetic and self-gratifying. “There I am. Right there.” He takes Lupin’s hand and points.

Lupin stares at him as if he’s mental, and he has to clamp down on his temper. “You are the most self-obsessed person I know,” he states.

Sirius laughs, and it’s a slightly dark noise. “Well, we can’t all be perfectly unselfish. Remind me again, are you here despite your condition because of the rest of the student body?” 

Lupin, to his credit, doesn’t wince. Instead he just turns to look at Sirius. “Are you always so patently cruel to everyone, or am I just lucky?”

“Don’t think I’m unaware of my own nature,” Sirius responds. “Don’t think you’re _fixing_ me.”

Lupin pulls out his wand; it makes Sirius respond by reaching for his own, but before anything can happen, Lupin simply finishes the cleaning spell. “Don’t be an idiot,” he says. “We aren’t all out to get you.”

Sirius takes a moment and is just silent, and _looks_ at him, and there isn’t even the seed of his pleased smile, and Sirius is desperate to get it back, but for the first time, he doesn’t know how to get what he wants, or even why he wants it.

Lupin leaves a bit later, and Regulus finds him there, this time actually doing work, tracing star charts out on a slip of parchment. “I got a letter from father,” Regulus begins, and that certainly makes Sirius stop.

“You never get letters from father,” Sirius says, reaching his hand out, and Regulus sits beside Sirius. “That isn’t part of the deal, you’re supposed to get mother, not both of them.”

“I’ve hardly got father, I’ve only managed his attention for ten minutes,” Regulus responds, handing the letter over. “I’m sure he’ll forget all about me once again tomorrow.” He goes silent, and curls his hands up to grab at his own sleeves, and looks away, out and down at the grounds, not up at the sky. 

Sirius ignores his brother’s odd manner and reads. The letter, for the first few inches, is perfunctory and mechanical and just like father’s letters to anyone who isn’t Sirius, and then goes into berating Regulus a bit for his poor marks in Charms in the usual icy, derogatory way. But it’s the last paragraphs that catch his attention.

_One of Sirius’ half-breed friends dared to send me a letter telling me to observe the company that your brother keeps. While I have gotten excellent reports from your Head of House and your professors on this matter, keep an eye on your brother. I know he strives to do well, but any slip is a slip that may taint him his entire life._

_I don’t approve of Severus Snape contacting me directly, and am not pleased that you would not handle this matter yourself, Regulus. Another slip like this on your part and we will have words, so take heed. I do not like to repeat myself._

The letter ends with the usual nonsense about their mother but Sirius is too angry to even look at it. He crumples the letter in his hand. “What are you going to do?”

The first thing that slashes his mind is _betrayal_ , but no, he’s been cleanly outmaneuvered in a way he did not expect, and that alone is something to consider. This isn’t the kind of revenge that Sirius can perform publicly. “Leave it, for now,” Sirius decides. Let this fester, let it rot, putrefy into something cleaner than Snape’s blood. Let the ice form before revenge is sought.

“Leave it?”

“Leave it, little brother,” Sirius decides. This is a personal injury, and the only thing that can be done is to soothe over the real problem, which is their father. “Write father back. Tell him that Severus is clearly delusional, and that I don’t really make friends with people he wouldn’t approve of.”

“Because you don’t,” Regulus begins.

Sirius looks at his little brother, who is starting to bite his bottom lip. “Don’t do that,” he says, but it’s gentle, “you’ll actually do damage to yourself-“ he tries. Regulus rubs his hands with his face, as if to wipe off the look. “No, listen to me. It doesn’t matter who I spend time with. Not to you, do you understand?”

“It reflects on me, you know,” Regulus tries haughty but fails, because he can’t keep looking at Sirius. He looks away, looks at anything else. 

“It doesn’t reflect on you. We are not the kind of men on whom things _reflect_ ,” Sirius explains, as if that’s truth, when it’s all just posturing. He sighs. “I’ll write father tomorrow, I'll smooth it over.”

Regulus smiles a bit, the uncertainty fading from his features. 

Sirius files away the words from Severus, files away the attitude, to pay it back later, when all his debts come to be collected.

\-------

“Where’s Peter?”

That isn’t usually how James starts a conversation, and that makes Remus turn his head away from his potions homework to look up. James is wearing every bit of his Quidditch uniform, including the pads ( _armor, it’s armor, this is war_ , James likes to say, usually when he’s a bit drunk) but he’s left his broom on the bed, and he’s looking at Remus like Remus is a particularly perplexing charm that he needs the solution to at this precise moment.

It makes Remus shift a bit, the tension collecting in his shoulders. “Detention, remember? Dungbombs in Transfiguration. His love affair with McGonagall continues.”

“When will he learn, I wonder, that her heart belongs to me?” James asks, sitting on Remus’ bed, just next to him. “By the way, if you use 2 full spoons of oppopanax in a stomachache potion, you’re likely to murder someone,” he noses in, and Remus stares at the potion he’s writing, which is now apparently a suicide potion, and scrawls out his measurements. “Honestly, you’re hopeless.”

“It’s hard to focus in a class that smells like someone’s grandmother put on all her perfume at once and then rolled around in a gravesite,” Remus mutters, as though that is the only reason he’s terrible at potions. Sometimes in class he looks over, to where Black and Snape work at their cauldrons, so carefully, and doing so spectacularly well and can’t help but stare, because it’s really not right that someone get everything right on the first go.

James snorts. “Yes, that’s it, that’s your focusing problem, it has nothing to do with how you fixate on Slytherins.” He snorts again.

“It’s very charming, how you like to mimic a pig, no wonder Evans wants so desperately a moment of your attention,” Remus drawls back, and fixes his murder mishap to once more cure a stomachache. 

James just remarks, “One day she will love me for all my piggy ways.” He sniffs, then, and Remus can’t help but smile at that, and finally sets his homework aside. “Aha, there we go, there’s the lovable scamp that is my best friend,” he says, pinching Remus’ cheek. “Now, tell me, who’s the lucky girl that I shall be warning about your inane need to color code your socks?”

“All my socks are black,” Remus points out. He also has no clue what James is on about. “There’s no girl.”

“There’s a girl. You’ve been distracted, a little moody, slightly peevish, secretive, and distracted. I know I said distracted twice,” James interrupts Remus before Remus can interrupt James, “and that’s not an accident. Also Peter says when you think no one is looking you stare vacantly into space and the corners of your mouth twitches.”

“I would be more worried I had a tic than me thinking about some girl, if I were Peter,” Remus replies, suddenly appalled, because this is about Black, who is not a girl, but just a friend (for one) and also he isn’t sure when his friends began this horrible psychoanalysis trend but he needs it to stop this instant. 

James legitimately pauses, though. “Well, let’s be honest, if you were Peter, you have a lot more to be worried about than just your facial spasms,” he admits, but then tips his head to look at Remus from the corner of his eye. “You’re sure that you don’t have a girl? Somewhere? I promise I won’t terrify her, honestly, if I haven’t already, she knows we’re friends and everyone in the school saw the, er…bare arse incident Halloween last year-“

“We swore we would never speak of that again,” Remus protests suddenly.

“Which tells you how dire this is, doesn’t it?” James states, slightly imperious about it. “Seriously, Remus, you know I’m not going to _judge_ you-“

“I’m hardly worried about judgment from you, James Potter. I’m not the one whose fourth year Herbology project went on a rampage and is still somewhere in the castle, occasionally ambushing innocent first years.”

“I maintain that without your helpful advice on fertilizer and that slug-repelling charm, it would have never gained sentience, so you’re as much to blame as I am,” James says, flopping, now. That means, hopefully, that the serious side of this conversation is over, and it is, as it turns to OWLS and qualifications and how much Lily smells like sunshine and happiness and joy and other impossible things, and _why won’t she just go to Hogsmeade with him_?

It’s funny, then, that later, when Remus goes to meet Black, how much their conversations contrast, because Black is in a foul mood, the kind of foul mood that leaves a second year Slytherin girl crying in his wake. Remus watches it unfold, although he doesn’t hear exactly what Black says, only sees him haughtily say _something_ , and then the tears happen, and Black walks away without so much as a look back.

“You’re a menace.”

“Please,” Black replies, once they’re out near the lake, and it’s dark, and no one can see the colors on their robes or ties or scarves (or Remus’ enormous red and gold earmuffs, a present from Peter, who knows how much he hates the cold) “I hardly said anything to her.”

“Yes, girls are known to burst into tears because of fond words,” Remus starts, and then stops, because for all he knows about girls, they do burst into tears when Black says kind things. He knows that he probably would, except they would be tears of horror as clearly Black had been replaced by some kind of body-stealing. “What did you say to her?”

Black looks over, raising his eyebrows a touch. “Why, Lupin, you sound so concerned. She’s barely above the rank of maggot.”

“You were already head of your House at her age,” Remus points out. “I’m not blind,” he adds. “The whole school knew.”

“More reason to make sure they know their place.”

This conversation is so infuriatingly difficult to navigate that Remus wants to scream. “Why do you talk like that?”

“Do you mean like a person, or like a pureblood?” Black shoots back, “Because you won’t like either insinuation.”

“Like you’re in a book, and you’ve been selected to play the villain, it’s ridiculous, you know,” Remus replies, resisting the urge to kick up some snow. He must have been mad to come out here, it’s cold, he can feel the air in his lungs crystallizing into something sharp. “Bloody hell, it’s freezing.”

Black isn’t moving now, though. He’s watching Remus, instead, it’s a bit disconcerting, because he isn’t even giving that superior smile. “What?” Remus asks, staring back.

“You have absolutely no forethought in anything you say, do you?”

Remus is affronted for a moment, “That’s rather rich, coming from someone who doesn’t even know why he makes second year girls _cry_.”

“I know exactly why I made her cry,” Black replies, “but it won’t make sense to you.”

“Because I’m not in Slytherin?” Remus isn’t sure if he’s flattered or offended by that prospect. Maybe a bit of both.

Black shakes his head. “No,” he says, “Because you think you’re a genuinely good person,” he explains, and ducks his head a bit. “Can we talk about something else? You need tutoring in potions,” he blurts out.

Remus is silent for a moment, because he hadn’t realized that when he wasn’t looking at Black, Black was looking at him, and that’s distracting enough that they turn to that topic, and walk, despite the cold.


	3. Howling:

Remus cannot breathe properly. This was never something that happened when he was home, in his village. His mother took such good care of him, his mother was beautiful and lovely. There is nothing more tempting than going back there, sleeping at his mother’s house, and forgetting the rest of the world. 

He cannot breathe properly because he kissed Sirius Black, driven by the sudden tenderness that lies beneath Black’s skin. He heads up into the attic, to where Tibby has shown him all the books that Black’s Uncle Alphard kept but Black didn’t want in the house – witch romance novels, old pointless spellbooks, outdated school texts. There is a battered copy of _Hogwarts, A History_ , annotated by Alphard Black in thick ancient scrawl. Old Black family heirlooms, nothing, he imagines, to what the Blacks keep at the family home on Grimmauld place.

He tucks himself into a corner, and it happens by accident. His corner is against a box, and the box has suffered from being in attic. He leans on it and it bursts, silver and green flying around him. He stares up in a haze, uncertain of what just happened, lying in a pile of Black’s old school things.

He begins to fold it, to rearrange himself, to berate his life, when he sees a photo album, slick leather with a green trim. He picks it up; Black would never have done something like this himself, and when he opens it, there, on the cover page, is a note.

__

_I hope you enjoy it. I asked everyone to contribute. –D.M._

As Remus turns the pages, it’s a wonder for him. He never thought that the Slytherins were so close, close enough that these kinds of photos existed, could exist, were in the realm of existing. Photos of Black’s year, sitting out on the lake, perpetually enjoying a sunny day. Of the entire house, shots of their common room, studying, laughing at some joke, of Black smiling that heartwrenching, beautiful smile, the only honest one he has. Of Black and his brother asleep on the common room sofas, leaning on each other, occasionally one falling over the other. Photos of a life that they had, once.

And then Remus turns the page and drops it. A photo of Black and Snape, both of them trying to look cool for the camera. Below it, another photo of Snape, this one of him looking slightly sullen as he reads a book. Trapped, reading a book forever, turning the same pages, reading the same text. 

There’s a crack. “Oh,” Tibby says with a horrible tone of _fear_ in her voice, “Oh, no, no,” she says.

“I’m sorry, it was an accident,” Remus begins, but she’s already started orchestrating a parade of objects, scarves, Quidditch equipment, books.

“Master Remus, you should not be here,” he says, squeaking, “you should be in your room, Master Sirius will be vexed, he does not like people seeing his schoolthings-“

“ _Tibby_!” he hears, Black’s voice doing that thing he manages where he just increases volume without yelling, piercing the walls. The muggles next door must think that Tibby is his wife, or his dog, because they hear her name at least ten times a day. 

She looks torn, terrified. “I have to-“

“Go, go, I’ll be right down,” he says, and Tibby apparates away. Remus stares at the book another moment, and then slips it into his cardigan.

~~~~~

He did not think that he would like Sirius Black so much. But the more time they spend together, the more time that he wants to spend with him. He’s funny, and clever, and sharp as a knife. He’s not kind – in fact, he’s sort of ceaselessly cruel, but the more time that Remus spends with him, the more time he realizes it’s careless. It’s ingrained, taught superiority, something that Black takes for granted, and it doesn’t make Remus angry as much as it makes him feel pity.

He never says that. He would never, not unless he wanted to pull this friendship – or whatever it might be – apart at the seams. 

They meet from time to time. Black sends him a school owl when he has an afternoon free. It drives James crazy ( _Who is Selene Brown, who, who who who, why does she keep sending your owls, she is not from Beauxbatons, not with a name like Brown, is she a Doncaster Brown, why aren’t you telling me, no, where are you going, why are you running away, Reeeeemuuuuus_ ) but it keeps everything hidden well enough.

They’re in one of the greenhouses; it turns out that Black is both good at and _likes_ Herbology, in some strange bizarre turn of events, and he got in a batch of carnivorous plants from Brazil that he’s carefully feeding bits of liver to. “Did you have to run from Potter again?”

“Peter. He’s remarkably quick for a boy who could practically be rolled down the halls,” Remus says, in a rather fond voice. He and James are allowed to mock Peter’s rotundness – Black is not. He simply snorts, his opinion known. “But sorry I’m late.”

“Don’t get too close on that side, I haven’t fed it yet-“ Black warns, and it snaps at Remus, who topples over. “Very good, showing some of that legendary Gryffindor bravery, running in the face of a plant.”

“It snapped at me!”

“I snap at you at least three times every time we meet, and you just keep coming back for more,” Black points out, and Remus can’t argue. He goes quiet instead, and when Black finishes feeding it, he takes his gloves off and tilts his head so it’s resting on one fist. It’s so casual, it’s actually soothing. “Just tell them you’re doing remedial Herbology.”

“No one does remedial Herbology,” Remus points out. “I don’t even plan on taking it next year, I think getting an OWL will be enough.”

“No Potions, no Herbology, please tell me you’re not going for a NEWT in Divination…”

Remus laughs. Divination has always been a bit of a joke class, easy because the teacher often overdoes the incense and falls asleep, but no one takes it and actually expects to learn anything. Remus never took it – James did, and claims it’s the best class he has, an extra hour of sleep every time he steps into the room. “Why do you care about my NEWT qualifications, anyway? Planning on following me there, as well?”

“My qualifications are all at the behest of my father, thank you,” Black says, slightly irritated. “I got a letter from him this morning about it, about Defense and Potions and no, of course you won’t take Herbology, why would you? It’s all been decided.” He stares at the plant in front of him. “Of course it doesn’t much matter, does it? When I move to London, I can have an entire garden, what is he going to do? Torch it?”

There’s a pause, because that’s still two and a half years away, a lifetime, but Remus supposes when you have a family name to uphold, the future is immediate and in your face in a way that is more desperate than he can possibly hope to understand, and he can’t stop thinking about his future, and how he’s unlikely to ever have a real job. “At least you can get a real job, if you like.”

Black looks up, then, and looks something between offended and sheepish. It’s an odd look on his face. “Don’t get self-pitying, it’s unattractive.”

“Attractive? Excuse me?” Remus latches onto that, and he’s about to go into something else, something about how it’s not his job to make his legitimate future problems attractive for the heir of the Ancient and Noble House of Black when he sees the flush of red on Black’s face. 

He’s not saying anything for a moment, and then it’s like he being attacked by a drunken bear. He hadn’t actually imagined that his first kiss would happen on the floor of a greenhouse, that it would be a little less sloppy, and possibly a little more romantic.

He also didn’t imagine it would be Sirius Black.

“I-“

There’s silence, and Sirius (because you cannot be kissed by a person and continue to think of them by only their surname, it’s rude) gets up and starts to collect his things. “No, Sirius, wait-“ he says, but Sirius turns, his wand out and pointed at Remus.

“Don’t. Don’t you dare say a word of this to anyone, this wasn’t, you’re a _werewo_ -“ he begins, that horrible chill back in his voice, and a quaver of real fear, but Remus moves, and his second kiss has a bit more finesse than his first one. He hears a clatter of Sirius’ wand to the floor.

He always thought that going mad wouldn’t feel so _incredible_. He thought it would involve the sky turning orange and the ground shaking, but no, instead it feels like the alchemy of power that he experiences when he casts a particularly satisfying spell, it feels like the touch of Sirius Black’s hands in his hair.

It’s also the sudden smash of Sirius Black’s fist against his cheek. “Have you lost your _mind_?” Sirius demands, “Don’t you know who I am?”

“Unfortunately I have an intimate acquaintance, yes,” he hisses back, reaching for his own wand, but then Sirius is inexplicably kissing him again, and his cheek hurts and pain is radiating down his neck but it feels too good to stop. “Am I having a nightmare? This is some kind of nightmare.”

“Shut up,” Sirius commands and kisses him again, and now they’re at least standing in the greenhouse, mouths plastered against each other, trying to puzzle out bodies and noses and lips while trying to not stop kissing. 

They don’t stop, not for another while, until Remus realizes he’s probably late for his study session with Evans and James, and if he doesn’t show up Evans will murder him with the blunt end of her wand. “I have to go-“ he says, between kisses, which have moved to the table. Remus doesn’t even care that he feels the uncomfortable edge of the table behind him, because the kissing is that good.

“It better be for a good reason,” Sirius replies, his mouth moving to Remus’ throat.

Remus nudges him off and Sirius gets off, looking put out about it. “I have to prevent murder,” he says, and presses another kiss, enchanted by the ease of it, “and considering I have to explain the black eye you gave me,” he starts.

“Yes, all right, all right,” Sirius says, and waves his hand. “Go, be free,” he says magnanimously. “I have to finish with these plants anyway.”

Remus smiles and is leaving, but just as he gets to the door he turns. “You will have to explain this, at some point.”

“Go,” Sirius commands and Remus shoots out the door. 

He’s back in the castle, just heading up the stairs, when he gets slammed by a hex that he never saw coming in his distracted state and leaves him gasping for air. Snape steps out from behind a pillar, and he looks furious, in a cold, abstract sort of way, but Remus reaches for something, anything. It’s like the air around him is turning to sludge, and he can only drink it occasionally. 

When Snape pushes him into the wall it’s easy, because Remus has no ability to fight back. “I don’t know what’s going on,” he hisses, like a snake, “but I’m tired of being thrown aside, and I know it’s _you_. Frankly I don’t know what’s so interesting about you but you can rest assured I’ll find out.”

Remus gasps for air again, and Snape smiles. “You and your friends think you’re so clever. Lily won’t speak to me, and you think oh, how funny, joke on Snape, but rest assured-“

He doesn’t finish the sentence because he’s getting slapped over the head by, of all people, _Regulus Black_ , and Regulus does a countercurse. Air slams into Remus’ lungs, and he hears the tail end of the fight once he regains his ability to process oxygen. “-old you to stay away from him!”

“Do you always do everything your brother says, _Regulus_?” Snape snarls back.

Regulus looks so much like Sirius, that it’s strange to look at him; he doesn’t have Sirius’ blinding beauty, but he has the Black good looks, the carved bone structure and the sleek black hair, and the same cold gray eyes, although it almost seems to Remus that Regulus’ eyes are warmer, softer than his brother’s. But he has that same aristocratic mien, that same bearing, like he’s better than everyone. “I’d rather not see him turn anyone else into a pig, so yes, I do. I won’t tell him-“

“I don’t care if you do,” Snape says calmer now, and Remus realizes he’s imitating Sirius’ cold, distinct manner. 

Regulus rolls his eyes. “You should,” he replies. “And you,” he adds, looking at Remus, “don’t you have somewhere to be?”

Remus looks at the both of them and chooses not to get any more involved in this. When he gets up to the library, he sits at the table just as Lily comes around the corner and lets out a tiny yelp. “Your face!” she says, “Remus, what happened?”

“Wha-oh, for Merlin’s sake,” he says, and touches the spot that Sirius punched. “I walked into a door,” he lies, “the trick one on the second floor next to the Charms room, you know the one.” The lie is so easy, so fluid, but he lies all the time, he’s good at it. 

Lily tuts and casts a small charm, and he can feel the tingling as the swelling goes down. “Best before Potter gets here and sees it and then goes running about revenge on a _door_ ,” she says, and Remus thinks that despite the mishaps, it’s been a good day indeed.

~~~~~~

The letter arrives in the afternoon, and that alone should have been warning. His father’s tremendous tawny owl, so huge that Sirius has long suspected it to be part eagle owl, flies in through an open window and aims right for his head. 

Tibby manages to catch the bird with a spell midflight just as Sirius is yelling, and she both takes the letter and hands it over, all the while shepherding the ghastly bird out the window. “What the blazes-“ he begins and stares down at the letter in his hand.

His father sends a letter at least weekly, but it’s closer to daily, recently, with all the trouble. He keeps making noises about how Sirius should join the cause, his brother, chatter chatter chatter, but it never amounts to anything, it’s all just white noise on paper. But those letters always come in the morning, before his father leaves for work.

Lupin comes thundering down the stairs, his wand at the ready. “What _happened_ , you were yelling-“

“Yes, well, I was attacked by a mad owl on a psychopathic rampage, you would yell too-“ he begins before he opens the letter, scowling, shredding the wax seal with the stylized _B_. Whatever news it is, it had best be the most important news that Sirius has ever received in his life.

He reads the letter once and the ground tips around him. It seems that North London (Islington, really) has been hit by a horrible earthquake only he can feel, because his legs no longer touch solid ground. His hands go for the table, but the table seems to have moved. He tries to find it but crashes, unsure what just happened, his legs splayed out in front of him, bent at an angle, as his hands shake and he reads the letter, over and over.

_Sirius,_

_Regulus is dead. The funeral will in three days time. We will see you there._

That’s it. There is no explanation, no reasoning, no real words of comfort. Your brother is dead. Be at the funeral. So typical of this family, so unsurprising. His brother, his best friend, his most loyal follower (after the pig thing), the boy who used to follow him around and laugh at all his stupid jokes and the one who never wanted credit for the brilliant, madcap things he thought of, the boy who heard the words _I kissed another man_ and whose response wasn’t one of disgust at the possibility of his brother kissing a man but rather _what was his blood status_ , as if even then it didn’t matter. He hasn’t seen his brother in two years, not since the first and only time his brother came to 73 Aberdeen, and begged him to join, not since they had that row about it. He hasn’t gone a day without thinking about him.

Before he can stop him, Remus is taking the letter from his hands, and then he’s gasping, his eyes wide. Sirius has never noticed how utterly golden they can be, how they’re not just a dull brown at all, but a strange whirling color. He can’t focus on anything else.

“Sirius,” he hears, and then Remus has his arms around him, and it’s funny he’s Remus once more, he hasn’t been Remus since school, and they haven’t touched this much since –

He cannot even finish that thought. At first he thinks this is a hug, but it’s not. It’s not a hug, because Remus is picking him up and carrying him up the stairs with his deceptive werewolf strength, or magic, or Tibby, Sirius doesn’t know. He goes limp but Remus carries on until he’s in his bed, and all he can do is wonder where that screaming is coming from, that cry that sounds like the world is falling apart. Is it his mother? He can hear her, screaming at the top of her lungs all the way from Central London, that’s what is must be, the sound of what’s left of the drops of humanity in her soul burning away. She loved Regulus best, she always did. He’s heard that sound before, he thinks. Where has he heard that sound before?

It’s not until after he’s been sick to his stomach, after he’s vomited into a basin and curled into his bed and refused to come out that he realizes that he was the one who made that noise. That horrible, aching sound, like death come calling, was from him.

~~~~~

He didn’t actually think that it would ever get to the point where he could sneak into corners of the castle to kiss someone who was a boy, a werewolf, a Gryffindor, and a half-blood, but probably the worst is that he’s not sure which of those things is supposed to bother him more.

Or that he cares, when Remus is pressed against him, kissing him like they could be caught at any moment, because often, they could. Sirius doesn’t care about the danger, but like a Gryffindor, Remus doesn’t ever want to kiss him unless they could be seen at any moment, unless there is an element of _getting caught_. They find broom cupboards, dark corners, strange narrow hallways that lead nowhere, empty classrooms, spaces under staircases and behind tapestries. All the creaking narrow passages inside Hogwarts, Remus seems to know them all, and now so does Sirius. 

The time passes, and Sirius knows things are changing; he knows he smiles more. First years don’t scurry quite so quickly away when he passes, third years openly start conversations, seventh years are a touch slower to move when he asks for things. But those things don’t seem to matter. He lets the slights fall, and Snape keeps making noises about how he’s getting distracted, but the first time he sleeps the night through and doesn’t have a single dream where anyone is screaming is remarkably uplifting.

The snows melt away and the cold rains stop, and spring sets in in earnest, with all the hayfever that it could possibly bring along with it. Regulus and Sirius are both sufferers, which is undignified and impossible, so they’ve been spending enough time at the hospital wing picking up potions that alleviate the symptoms that even Snape comes along, rolling his eyes. Sirius comments that with an enormous nose he should at least suffer a little, but he doesn’t at all, and it’s unbearable.

They’re in for their usual potion when he spots Remus getting up, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hand. The full moon was two days prior, and he looks peaky and chilled, his skin pasty and oddly dull. Sirius looks away quickly, because while they may have had their tongues down each other’s throats, this feels invasive, somehow. 

“When did Sirius Black begin to care about privacy?” Snape interrupts, staring openly, his eyes narrowing.

“When did I start caring about _Remus Lupin_?” Sirius replies, starting to walk away, but Snape makes a noise, and Sirius turns. “What was that?

“I would ask you the same question,” Snape replies, and then the world is red, and Snape is on the floor, gripping the ground like he can’t feel anything, which he can’t. The hex that Sirius does not remember casting (although he did, it’s his hex) is strange, because it shouldn’t be terrible, except it is – Snape won’t be able to feel anything, everything will go numb, including his sense of equilibrium, his sense of what is up and what is down, his sense of gravity, his sense of security with the order of the world around him. He won’t even be able to feel the walls or the floor, just the feeling of _falling_ , or something akin to it. Sirius knows exactly what it’s like. It’s a curse his father used to use on him, when he was being particularly irritating.

Sirius bends over and his voice is low. No one would know what is going on, except possibly Regulus, who knows the signs of this particular curse. It’s not the worst in Sirius’ armada, but its high enough up there that he almost never uses it. “Stay away from him,” he says, as calmly as possible. “I’ve said it before, and I’m saying it again. _I hate repeating myself_.”

When he releases Snape, when he mutters the countercurse, he rolls his shoulders and keeps walking. “Now, do I really take this once an hour for the next six?” he asks, looking at the vial in his hand. Best to keep as if nothing happened, and Snape follows. They understand each other.

It’s two days later when he meets Remus in a little room just off a hallway in the fourth floor. Sirius isn’t sure what its original use was – probably somewhere to lock misbehaving children, because it’s only about four feet high and five feet in each direction, but it fits the both of them. When Sirius opens the door, Remus visibly jumps, even though he’s sitting, and almost hits his head on the roof of the blasted thing.

“Sorry, I should-“

“You look terrible,” Sirius says, because he doesn’t believe in pulling his punches here, not verbal ones, anyway. 

Remus just looks at him, an annoyed look on his face. “I should go,” he says, uncharacteristically.

Sirius stares. “No,” he replies, automatically. He hasn’t gotten what he came for, he hasn’t gotten what he wants, of course Remus isn’t going. He reaches for Remus’ hand, and feels the shiver, the shake, and sees that it’s not just his hand, it’s all of him. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing-“ the other boy tries to protest, but the protest dies, silent, and he just stares sullenly for a moment. That sullen stare is a mile long and so familiar that Sirius has to remind himself he’s not looking in the mirror. But then he sighs and finishes. “Nothing’s wrong, Sirius. You can let go of my hand.”

“You were shaking. Something’s wrong,” Sirius argues, the rage in him rising. He can feel the metal of it against the inside of his skin, boiling under the surface, cooling in his blood to ice. “Tell me what it is.”

“No,” Remus says, simply, but his fingers curl around the sleeve of Sirius’ robe, they hold on there for a long, long moment. The heat of his temper boils away and stows, like it can be preserved, saved for a moment where it will be used. “Stay.”

“Tell me,” he whispers, moving to sit next to Remus, who just leans on him, his fingers still caught in his robe. “I want to help you.”

He doesn’t think he’s ever said those words in that order before, not in his entire life. An entire lifetime of people helping him, or being afraid of him, or scaring him into a terror so extreme that he’s willing to hide behind masks and other people, and that’s something he can only admit to himself as long as they stay in this tiny room, as long as they stay here, the two of them, where no one else can see or touch them. 

“You don’t help people,” Remus says, because he knows. He knows the dark things that crawl under Sirius Black’s skin, the places where old secrets linger and haunt and rot, where they hurt and bruise. He knows all of that, and he doesn’t move away, not now, not _yet_. “And you wouldn’t protect me anyway, I have to do that myself.”

“It was Snape,” he says, because he knows, too, the things that scare other people, the shapes their demons take. And this demon, he knows it well enough to know that a warning won’t scare him off.

Remus’ voice is so quiet, but it’s not the dangerous sort of quiet that Sirius and his father both affect. It’s the kind of quiet that he imagines other people – people out there, strange and cowardly people – do when they want to ask for something but know they can’t. “I think he knows something, I think he must,” Remus says, and his fingers curl around the sleeve of Sirius’ robe. That sleeve will never be the same, no house-elf will ever be able to take the crush of his fingers out of it now.

It’s not cold in his stomach, the worry, or a knot, or anything that worry usually manifests itself with. Instead it’s a tightening in his hands, the feeling of pain that makes him open and close them, like there should be a wand. The feeling of magic working itself up under his skin, bursting through his pores, fear in the place where anger usually is to fuel his temper.

But he stays, he lets Remus curl his fingers tight around his robe, he kisses him sweetly, and he thinks, and thinks, and decides. There is kindness and there is cruelty, and Sirius has never let himself fall so completely into one or the other as he has at this moment, with this boy, and he doesn’t know how he landed here at all.

~~~~~

The last five years of his life, Remus has constructed the opposite of a shrine to Sirius Black inside his head. It has been carefully built there, memories of cruelty, memories that keep the injuries from scarring, from healing at all. 

But Remus is not built for vendettas or grudges. He’s awful at avoiding people, awful at leaving a space for people _not_ to like him, even a tiny sliver of one. He thinks, sometimes, that if he had not been a werewolf he would have been a boisterous, bright person, rational and perfectly capable of avoiding the people who he should avoid and keeping distance from those he should dislike. And when he sees Sirius curled up tight in his bed, looking half dead, refusing to weep for some stupid family reason, the worst of the cruel things he thinks about the other man crumble away, even as he knows, knows with absolute certainty, that this is not a path he can ever go down again.

But he cannot leave him. He doesn’t leave his bedside as Sirius sleeps, passed out from something that Tibby made (and Remus doctored with a sleeping potion), or when Sirius finally wakes. Sleeping potions, he knows all too well, can be hell on the system. Once he spent an entire morning after a sleeping draught recounting to James all the ways that he thought that he and Lily should arrange the flowers at their wedding, and how he wanted to see the marquee trimmed. James, bless him, was remarkably patient with Remus taking over his wedding, and never mentioned it again.

Sirius is so quiet when he wakes that at first Remus doesn’t realize that the sounds he’s making aren’t just the incoherent noises of sleep but rather actual words. He sets his book down and looks over. “What was that?”

“Remus, we could have been good, couldn’t we? We could have,” he slurs, his normally bright gray eyes cloudy and unfocused. “We could have been, you and I. I would have protected you.”

Remus wants to build a wall around his heart, right now. There is one there already but it’s low, easily crossed. He wants it higher, made of good Roman construction, harder to pierce, with a bowman mounted at top. “We would never have worked,” he lies, easily. Like breathing. 

“No, don’t say that,” Sirius struggles, huffing. “You said it once, that in another life, we could have been lovely, it would have been lovely.”

“We are not in that life, Sirius,” Remus says, holding his arms crossed, tight, so he doesn’t reach out. “Do you need to make arrangements to go to your brother’s funeral?”

Sirius can’t even get angry, it’s so obvious in his face. There is no mask now, no high haughty expression. There is only a fear, deep, and Remus isn’t sure what he’s afraid of. It must be something terrible. Of being alone, his brain supplies, because that is the only thing that he could think would put that look on his own face. “I can’t go,” he says, his fingers curling in the down of his quilt. “I can’t go.”

“Of course you can – you _have_ to,” Remus argues, because this is ridiculous. If his father was the one who was dead, there would not be a thing in the world that could stop him. There is so much about them that is still old personality traits from school, when at eleven they were expected to be whole people, as though the world worked that way. Remus does not know if the Sorting Hat would put him, with everything he has felt and seen and experienced, back in Gryffindor, but sometimes that old bravery and boldness rears back and pounces.

“No, I can’t, I can’t leave the house-“ Sirius breaks off the explanation, but it doesn’t matter, because Remus is interrupting anyway.

“Come off it, this is pathetic. You’re not seriously that afraid of your own cousin, not the Sirius Black I knew from school-“

“If you were even half the brilliant mind you think you are, you would be _petrified_ of Bellatrix,” Sirius slurs back, still half dazed, unsure, “but no, I can’t leave the house, Dumbledore won’t let me, this isn’t just me being _good_ , this is _punishment_ -“

Remus stares, confounded, as if Sirius just told him that the sky were made from the same stuff that made the veiny bits of spoilt cheese. Sirius slams his head into the pillow, and Remus gasps. “You told him. You told him everything.”

“Of course I told him everything! _I said I would_ , didn’t I? I never lied to you, I never lied to you, I never _lied_ to you, how many time do I have to bloody say it, you were never so dangerous that I had to _lie_ to you!” The slurring is less pronounced but Remus knows he’s telling the truth, because it takes longer than that for the sleeping potion to wear off completely. It’s not a pretty truth – made even more unappealing by the admission that he never saw Remus as dangerous, which is oddly offensive in a way that Remus cannot pinpoint – but it is truth.

“Shush,” Remus says, trying to process everything.

Sirius actually tries to summon up a level of haughtiness, “Don’t you dare tell me to –“

“ _Shush_ ,” Remus repeats, and goes to sit next to him, moves to sit near him, then just freezes there. “You never lied to me.”

“I never lied to you,” Sirius repeats. “You were filthy and strange and impossible but I never lied to you.”

Remus wants to ice his heart over, but this is so sad, because now Sirius is crying, he’s crying over everything he’s lost. His brother, his best friend, and the man who is standing before him. All the people who he does not see, who he cannot be with, who he will never see again, because of a mistake he made. Sirius Black is crying, and the tears are _real_ , and it makes Remus think for a moment that he’s a fool because even though there are tears, he cannot forgive him, cannot, will not, will never.

“Once,” he says, “we could have been lovely. But we are terrible for each other.”

“You are not my weapon,” Sirius says, foggy and slurring still.

Remus puts his head in his hand and dips his entire body forward. “And the fact that it took you five years to realize that makes it all the more obvious why.”

~~~~

Remus sometimes plays a game, where he tries to think – what if, what if the circumstances had been different? What if he had been a Hufflepuff, or Sirius a Gryffindor, or what if he had simply done what his mother suggested and stay home and go to a muggle school and learn muggle things and just locked himself up once a month? 

What if James had been there?

What if Peter had known?

What if the whole world hadn’t turned around?

Some things, Remus decides, when the game becomes too painful, are just fate. They are not great mysteries. Some events are fated to be, because there is no way that choice and logic should enter into things that are senseless and violent. He was fated to be bitten. He was fated to have some unexplainable attraction to Sirius Orion Black. He was fated to be blinded by him, passing too close to the brilliant center of an unreachable star.

He knows something is wrong when he wakes up, because his mouth tastes unusually thick with blood. Some full moons, during perigee, this is usual. He bites himself, and draws blood, but this is different. He can’t remember everything, it always takes a while, but he’s not in nearly as much pain as he usually is. He feels somehow _better_ , less sore, less bruised, less scratched. He wraps himself in a sheet, takes a cloth and goes to clean up, and as he turns to go into the makeshift washroom, he sees the black and red mass of-

At first, he thinks it’s his robes, bits of furniture, his own blood. That’s all he sees, because he cannot make sense, heads or tails of what he is looking at. But then he sees the hand, separate from the body, gnawed on and grotesque. It’s lying on the ground a few feet away, the fingers still perfectly formed, ready to hold something, curving just like that. 

Remus focuses on that curve. The space in the room contracts, he cannot look away from the way that the fingers, stained with just the barest bit of ink, look so _real_. They are pale and bloodless but real, not that rubbery strange appearance that Zonkos products have. 

He throws up.

He retches right on the floor, curled up, and it’s red and frothy and that just makes him retch more until there is nothing left, his stomach twisted into a ragdoll shape, and it doesn’t matter because he keeps trying, keeps trying to empty it more until he just lies there on the floor of the Shrieking Shack and tries to be brave enough to get up, to clean up, to do something, anything.

He’s a Gryffindor, he should be brave enough for this, shouldn’t he? 

(He’s only sixteen, another part of him sobs, he is too young to be a killer, he is too young for all of this, he curses Fenrir Greyback and his father and this nightmare, it has to be a nightmare, except everything stinks and it’s too real.)

Madame Pomfrey finds him there, he thinks. Thinks, because everything is fuzzy and blurry until the Headmaster arrives, and Remus knows he is crying, and he knows that this is weakness but he doesn’t care, he has to cry. He cries for his mother.

The school matron is the one who holds him, she has always been fond of him, even when she’s stern and a bit unyielding to everyone else, she doesn’t leave him, not even to get help, she just sends her patronus, and holds him and he knows she shouldn’t, he could be dangerous, but she doesn’t care.

The Headmaster takes control of the situation. He gives Remus something fizzing and warm to drink, and Remus remembers saying something, but he can’t piece it together at the moment, although Dumbledore tells him, after the three of them are clean and Remus has slept for what feels like an eternity. “You will not be sent to Azkaban. You will not be sent from this school,” he adds. “This tragedy – and do not think, for a moment, it was anything but that – happened due to lack of care and lack of thought, but not on your part, Mr. Lupin.” Dumbledore is quiet. “I will handle matters, and I urge you to speak to Madame Pomfrey about your nightmares. But do you understand why you cannot leave?”

Remus speaks, for the first time in what feels like forever, since he lost a part of his soul, since that part of him blackened and charred and died. “No one knows I’m a werewolf,” he says, although that’s a lie. “And it would be bad not simply for me,” he adds, by rote, “but for the image of werewolves.”

Dumbledore must know, _must_ know the question that Remus wants to ask, because he says, “I do not blame you. I would like to see you, once a week, through the end of term.”

He was fated to be Dumbledore’s man. That was guaranteed, but this seals it. It was fate from the time that he received that letter and that visit, and from the time he first showed up, overwhelmed by the magic of the castle and the lights and the boat, and the other students in it, new friends. 

He was fated to be foolish for it.

He was fated to kill Severus Snape on the night of April’s full moon, when he was sixteen years old.

~~~~~

He gets up from bed the next day, although for all he knows two years have passed since Regulus died. The world is different. The sun rises and it sets and Remus – Lupin – is inexplicably still in his house and Tibby still makes him breakfast, a cup of tea, toast and jam and sausages, and she still brushes his hair and doesn’t say a word. He pretends, and it lasts right up until he goes and opens his newspaper and tries to casually read the list of the dead and he has to hold back his voice, swallow his pain.

He has been swallowing his emotions so long that they have cut deep, ragged holes in his throat.

He feels those old impulses, the ice in his veins, the frozenness that only he could summon. They are aptly named, the Blacks, after stars, because they burn so hot, but Sirius always had to be different. There was never any other option.

Lupin comes down and Tibby brightens, lightens. The love is so obvious it’s sickening. Everyone falls in love with Lupin, he is so _loveable_ , for all that he’s a werewolf and a half-breed. “You _drugged_ me,” he accuses, to cut this warm friendly morning in half.

“I gave you a sleeping potion, yes,” Lupin responds without even a hint of remorse.

“You _drugged_ me and you took things from me that were personal, private,” Sirius continues, the jagged emotions slicing their way into his stomach. “How surprising. I thought the only one who bled green and silver here was me.”

Lupin’s eyes narrow, “You needed to sleep.”

“You decided that, not me. Never again,” he says. “Never give me a sleeping potion – or any kind of potion – again.” He turns to look at Tibby. “And you, get out of my sight, now.”

There’s a crack, and she’s gone, but Lupin isn’t, he’s still right there, and the ice is getting so cold it burns. He doesn’t look contrite, or annoyed. He looks _sad_ , instead. “I wrote to Dumbledore. The reply came this morning, while you were still asleep.”

Lupin drops a note on the table. It is slightly singed, as all missives from Dumbledore are. Sirius snatches it up and looks at it, and sets it back down. “Why did you do this?”

“You deserve to go bury your brother.” Lupin stands up. “You should get to say goodbye to at least one of them.”

~~~~~

The day that Severus is destined to die is a strange day. To begin with, Sirius starts a riot in the Great Hall at breakfast. 

The riot begins when he casually comments to Millicent Sallows, who is sitting next to Henry Bulstrode that she looks fine.

This compliment to Millicent, a fourth year with a truly unfortunate underbite, gets the attention of Della Max, Helen Davis, and Myrtle Greengrass, who banded their wits together to cast a particularly nasty leg-swelling jinx on Millicent. 

At this time, Sirius was very carefully filling his breakfast plate.

The leg swelling curse causes Millicent’s legs to kick out. Henry Bulstrode, a pureblood with notions of the sanctity of blood purity, or something, gets kicked, and is naturally, offended enough to assume it is Nathan Kincaid, a half-blood wizard with a quick temper. He bellows, but offers no curses, not having permission from Sirius, who, at this point, is taking a bite of his eggs.

Nathan doesn’t see a problem with replying with a curse, one that glues Henry’s eyes shut, making him turn and slam into one of the Yaxleys (Sirius doesn’t actually notice enough to see which one) who takes this opportunity to hurl a curse back that hits Helen Davis, and of course, her friends rush to her aid by aiming not a curse, but a croissant well-fortified with ketchup. From there, it’s downhill. There is no saving this meal.

“It speaks volumes that out of everyone in the house who was legitimately involved by choice,” Regulus says later, staring at the wasteland caused by Sirius’ single comment, hardly deserving to be called a compliment, “the only one who didn’t get points docked or detention was you.”

“I’m in a foul mood,” he retorts, staring at his mostly uneaten breakfast. “Where is Severus, anyway?”

“Yes, and the whole school is perfectly aware of the state of your humour,” Regulus doesn’t roll his eyes, but the muscles around his eyes do _twitch_ in a manner that suggests he very much wants to. “He said he had to take care of a matter.”

Sirius knows when his rising hackles are obvious, not because he can feel them, but because he can see Regulus’ response, his quick withdrawl. “He’s not helping matters any,” he begins, but gets interrupted for the first time since he was twelve by a member of his own House.

“I was seeing to your sweetheart,” Snape says darkly from behind him, taking a seat next to him. To his credit, although Sirius would never say, he does it as though everything is fine, and there is absolutely no danger from Sirius after such an epic display of temper that was the food fight. 

Regulus looks confused. “What?”

Sirius just looks over at Snape, who is taking a roll and opening it with his fingers. “Regulus, go make sure that the girls don’t murder each other, will you?”

The girls are already on their way to some class, or another, and Regulus leaves with an expression that suggests he really doesn’t want to, but he’s never quite had the backbone to stand up to Sirius. 

Sirius and Snape sit there for a long moment while Snape eats, before Sirius breaks the silence. “You really ought to simply do what you’re told,” he says, softly, but he leaves the edge out of his voice. His stomach is doing something it’s never done at school before, something akin to what it feels when he is on the receiving end of his father’s poor temper. 

“We’re not all blind,” Severus replies, not looking at him, and Sirius turns to take a roll for himself. The rest of the school is starting to leave, breakfast is ending, and they are the last two Slytherins sitting at the table. There is no backup, no mask, no ability to do anything. There are no more hexes that can fix this. “I’m not going to be replaced with a half-bree-“

“Careful not to cast your aspirations too high, one of us at this table _does_ remember your parentage quite well,” Sirius snaps before he finishes that sentence.

Snape turns, then, his face contorted in something that can only be called fury. “You had me shrug off a friendship I’ve had since I was a _child_ , and now you think that you’re above blood status? That you can dabble without paying the price? I refuse to be tossed aside, not when I’ve given up everything else, Sirius! You’re meant to be my friend, do you hear me?” 

Sirius catches the last bit of that, the knot in his stomach tightening, because what he hears is not a plea but a threat, he hears it loud and clear. _He knows something_ , he hears Remus say, and later he will say to himself, shout it, that this is what drove him. 

But that isn’t it at all.

“Calm down,” he says, taking the situation back, controlling matters. “I’m not replacing you. He caught my interest, that’s all.”

“What makes him so _interesting_? The sweet kisses or the meaningless babble of affection?”

The rage is so intoxicating, so blinding, that Sirius knows why his mother blasts people off the family tree, why her screams can wake the dead. It is so seductive, the lure of his temper, it makes everything better, and he thought that the fight earlier would take the edge off, but it didn’t. Somehow, despite all that, despite everything, he _laughs_. “Go find out for yourself. All you have to do is go to the Whomping Willow tonight at midnight, stop it, and enter the tunnel below.”

That seems to catch Snape off-guard, because his tone goes from nasty to tempered in an instant. “There’s no way to stop it.”

“There is,” Sirius says with a casual shrug. “Take a rock and aim it at the rather large knot on the base of the tree, facing northeast. Hit it with enough accuracy – well, I suppose a spell might do the trick – and it’ll stop.”

“It’ll kill me.”

“Hardly. I did it.” Sirius stands, arranging his robes around him. “It’s up to you. I’m certainly not going to make you. Are you coming?”

“Where?”

“Class,” Sirius says, offering his hand, and Snape takes it and follows.

That night, Sirius does an essay, plays chess with his brother, listens to a long and drawn out story from Myrtle Greengrass on the whereabouts of her brother while rolling one lock of her long curly hair between his fingers, falls asleep in the common room for a good while, and finally gets woken up by Edward Blishwick because it’s lights out. He sleeps like a stone.

The next morning, Regulus wakes him up, and he blinks in confusion. “What are you doing on top of me?” he asks, blurrily, and he can hear the people around him rustling, confused. “Get off, get off-“

“Sirius,” Regulus says, and his voice cracks, snaps, and wavers, but he doesn’t cry. “Severus, it’s Severus…”

“For Merlin’s sake if he’s being a prat, send Ed to handle it, I’m in no mood, it’s a _Saturday_ -“

“He’s dead!” Regulus yells it, actually yells it, and Sirius sits bolt upright. He can’t puzzle out his thoughts, not at first, but it doesn’t matter because Regulus isn’t finished. “They found his body this morning, he snuck out, and Slughorn says it was out in the Forbidden Forest, but I don’t know any more than that. They – they asked me to wake you up, and tell you.”

Sirius is sure, for a moment, that he’s not actually awake. It’s too bizarre. He’s sixteen. People his age don’t _die_. They break their arms, have their heads slammed into things, get concussions, fall off broomsticks. They don’t _die_ , not at school. 

Then it changes, like a shiver of realization against his muscles. 

He was that stupid.

He was that stupid, to go to the damned tree, to not be scared of it, to keep going, to ignore the howling and the screaming. Why would he do that?

Another voice, a colder voice, supplies the answer. Severus always tugged at the lead, pulled at it, as if he might break away but he never did. He never would. He couldn’t. Some people think that Slytherin is not made of bonds of loyalty, that the feelings they have towards each other are of ambition and cruelty, but Sirius knows that’s not true. There is no greater loyalty than loyalty towards family: that is ingrained in his skin, etched in the fabric of his being. It is not fear, not all the time. Sometimes it’s trust. 

This time it was trust.

At breakfast the Headmaster makes the announcement. Severus Snape died in the night in what is a great tragedy, students are to remember that they live in a dangerous place, and that the rules governing the bounds of the school are for their protection. He offers condolences, apologies, and the time and place for a memorial service, and adds that students who need to speak to someone should contact their head of House.

He looks at Sirius once through the speech, and Sirius looks back. He does not look for where Remus should be, between James and Peter, silent as stone, just like the rest of their house, just like the rest of the school. There is no need. He knows that Remus will not be there.

He does not go to the memorial service a few days later. He says he feels sick, and he goes, instead, to the astronomy tower.

Remus will be there.

~~~~~~

At first he thinks that all this will lead to is backsliding, but the truth is that Sirius doesn’t much engage with anyone. Tibby sends his meals up through magic, and he doesn’t even write anymore, he just occasionally goes into the basement, then comes back up, moons around the house, and looks terminally lost. It’s the saddest thing that Remus has ever seen.

Still, on the morning of his brother’s funeral he dresses and comes down the stairs. He looks like he did in school, in a way; well dressed, well turned out. Everything about him screams money, even though he’s only wearing black robes, the only thing about him not severe and solid the silver pin in the shape of star near his collar. He doesn’t see Remus – Remus knows because he’s speaking to Tibby in soft tones at the top of the stairs, muttering something, and she’s squeaking and shaking.

“Are you leaving?”

Sirius looks over the bannister and he looks, for a moment, so blasphemously beautiful, even as he gives Remus the kind of look that would break his heart. It’s the sort of sadness that transcends the differences between them, it’s the sadness that Remus feels, from time to time, when he thinks of the misery he’s been dealt. “I’ll only be gone a couple of hours.”

He comes down the stairs and his hands are shaking when he opens the door, wand in hand, although he doesn’t look afraid. Instead there is an expression on his face – it’s hard to read, but Remus has seen it before. He saw it the day that Sirius came to him, after that horrible full moon, after Snape died, after both of them lost a piece of innocence that even this war may have kept. 

They are a lost generation, members of it, they’ve given up their youth and their vibrancy and their passions for a war that Remus is afraid will not end until every wizard and witch in England is dead. But Sirius and Remus were lost long before then. 

“Stay safe,” Remus says, and Sirius doesn’t look at him, but heads out the door.

Remus stares at the back of the door for what feels like a long time, not moving, his hand on the doorknob, even though he cannot go out, he has to stay. 

They go about their day. He and Tibby, they make lunch and eat it, and Remus lets her sit at the table with him, even though it clearly makes her uncomfortable even as her ears wiggle in a sort of sad house-elf pleasure. They don’t chat, but Remus reads the Prophet, and he’s in the middle of a sentence about cauldron thickness regulation when there’s a _crack_ , but it’s not fast enough for once. 

He’s in the basement, then, and he knows, he hears Bellatrix screaming and he hears Tibby’s frantic apparating. Tibby is defenseless, she can’t hurt Bellatrix, she can’t even protect herself, because Bellatrix is family and Tibby is a house elf. Remus is about to head back up the stairs when the door to the basement _explodes_ , shards of wood and ash flying everywhere. Remus grips for his wand, summoning his patronus, which leaps through her and takes off. Bellatrix screams and grips at her eyes, the light of a patronus slamming into them blinding her for a crucial instant, and he can hear Tibby screaming, “ _Master Remus, hide!_ ”

He doesn’t know why he goes for the door next to him, and when he shuts it he breathes and thinks this is the most cowardly thing that he has ever done. The office – it is an office, a small one, with a desk and a quill – is a secret, Bellatrix may have seen him in the basement but she doesn’t know where he is, and he is safe for the moment.

He’s safe, but he can hear her, just on the other side of the wall. “Come out, come out, pet,” she yells, and he can hear Tibby crying, sobbing. He has never felt more for a house elf in his life. “If you come out now, I won’t hurt her, my promise as a _Black_.” She emphasizes the last word, as if it will make this less painful.

No.

It’s to remind him that Tibby can’t do anything to her. The house elf can’t even run away, now, she’s tied to Bellatrix until Sirius comes back, but Remus doesn’t know if he can hold out that long. The little house elf doesn’t know about this secret, she can’t, but Bellatrix is no fool. 

But Remus can’t do it. He cannot betray what he has, not for anyone. He covers his mouth when he hears her yell, “ _Crucio_ ,” and holds his breath when he hears Tibby scream, and over, and over, and curls up and thinks of the people he will save and not the one person he cannot save now. He thinks of his Patronus going for help, and he thinks of Lily and James and the baby, who Remus has not met yet because he was supposed to be going home, he was supposed to be going to see them when he took a detour for Dumbledore in Little Hangleton and found-

-he thinks of what he’s found and what is lying, upstairs, wrapped in wads of cloth and hidden under a floorboard, in a place no one knows about, not even Sirius, for as much as this is his house. 

He thinks of that and still goes to open the door after the seventh _Crucio_ , after the seventh scream, when he hears, “ _Get out of my house-_ ”

Sirius is back. He isn’t yelling. Remus can barely hear him speak, but he knows something is happening because he can hear Bellatrix screaming back about _blood-traitors_ and _you’ll pay for this_. There’s quiet for a moment; at the very least, there isn’t any more screaming. Remus presses his ear to the keyhole and he catches snatches of the conversation - taut, quiet, heavy. “I saw you, I _saw you_ at the funeral-“

“It was my _brother_ , of course I went to his funeral.” Sirius’ voice is getting closer, like he’s coming down the stairs. Remus doesn't want to think of the scene but he finds it laying itself out, Sirius looking like ice and nobility, Bellatrix looking disheveled and mad. “I told you what would happen if you came here again.”

“I saw what you have,” Remus hears, and there’s another scream of _crucio_ and Remus’ blood slows, he can’t breathe, because the scream is still Tibby’s and he wonders if that makes him a terrible person, that he is so grateful, so pathetically grateful that it was not _Sirius_. “I saw what you’re hiding, and _he should come out!_ ”she shouts, shrill.

There’s the flash of a spell, and Remus holds onto the door, because it’s Bellatrix who screams this time, and he knows, there are spells flying, there are _curses_ flying, and the yell of _blood traitor_ , over and over. 

That’s when Sirius screams. 

Remus has never heard that sound before. He heard him yell, for his brother, for the evaporating bit of his childhood. It had been a familiar sound that day - _where have I heard that before_ , Remus had thought – and it chills him to the bone. He opens the door, then, and raises his wand just in time to see Bellatrix turn towards Remus, panting and covered in blood. There is a moment of silence, a split second where no one knows what’s going on. But then, so quickly that Remus isn’t sure what is happening, Sirius is in front of him the moment that Bellatrix yells “ _Avada kedavra_!” and the green light of that curse reflects off the walls of the basement.

She gasps, because that was clearly not her target. She doesn’t seem to care, though, as she aims again. Before she can say a word she’s flying through the air, and Remus stares at his wand, because he doesn’t remember casting a spell. “How dare you,” she begins, but she flies again, her head slamming into the ceiling, and when she lands she’s silent.

Tibby stands in front of Remus, her ears pulled back like an angry cat, and yelps, “Don’t hurt him, you won’t hurt him, not now, not ever!”

Remus looks down at her like he’s never seen her before, and he goes to check on Bellatrix first, his training making it imperative. She’s passed out – there’s blood on her chest in gashes, and she’s bleeding from her head, but she’s breathing. He takes her wand and ties her up to wait for an auror, and then goes to see to Sirius.

He looks like he is sleeping, like at any moment he’ll wake. Tibby takes one of his hands and she’s crying, but she knows. Of course she does.

~~~~~

He always goes up to the Astronomy tower when he’s upset. He hates the moon, hates it, fears it, and it is a strange pleasure to see it whittle away, pare down to nothing. 

He hears Sirius come up and thinks that he should tell him to stay away, but he can’t do that, can he? Sirius will go where he wants, when he wants, and Remus will follow, dumb, unable to resist. That’s how things are. 

“It’s not your fault, you know,” is the first thing out of Sirius’ mouth, and Remus turns and of course he knows. Sirius would figure it out, he would know. “You don’t have to atone for this.”

Remus stands and crosses the room and puts his arms around Sirius’ waist, and breathes in the smell of him, the strange grass-and-lavender smell, so floral it should belong to a girl. He can’t bring himself to say what he wants to say, which is that this should end, that he’s a menace, he’s dangerous, that Sirius is in danger. Instead he takes a last selfish breath.

“Remus, get off,” Sirius says, but he doesn’t push. The words land, and finally Remus takes a step back. “It’s all right. No one is angry with you.”

The words are so strange, so foreign – “No one? _I’m_ angry with me, don’t you see that? I ki-“ he can’t finish the sentence. He grips his hair, instead, tugs on it a little, frustrated. “I’m going mad. Why would he do that? Why did he do that? Everything-“

“Because he was a fool,” Sirius interrupts casually. “No one with a sane thought in their head would hear a werewolf and keep _going_.”

“Don’t speak ill-“

“He’s dead, what is he going to do, make ill-mannered jokes about how he thinks we kiss and how I’m tossing him aside for you?” 

“Sirius, we _do_ ki-“ Remus begins, but then it’s like a tower falling, the way that Sirius is holding himself, so straight, the way his hands are tied in the sleeves of his robes, the way he’s holding his mouth so straight. Everything about this moment is sickening, terrifying, because Remus sees something. “Sirius.”

“Have a care,” he begins, but Remus can’t hear it over the sound of the blood rushing in his ears, storming there.

“Sirius,” he repeats, carefully, because if he speaks quickly he’ll trip over the words and it’s so important, so vital that he is clear. “What did you do? What did you do to _me_?”

Sirius balks. Remus has never seen him like this, caught flat-footed, his face open and unsure for a moment. “I didn’t do anything to _you_ -“ he starts to protest, but then Remus hears a sound, a terrible shout, filling the entire astronomy tower. That must be what a banshee sounds like, he thinks, the thought rational and out of place as the sound keeps happening, like death come calling. It’s not until Sirius’ hands are over his mouth that he realizes that the wail had come out of his mouth.

“I didn’t do it to you, Remus, I did it to him, and I didn’t even mean it, I didn’t think the idiot would actually have the courage to go into that pit, not with the noise you make, Remus, are you listening to me?” Sirius holds him, but Remus can’t, he can’t let this happen, he breaks away and moves to the other side of the room. 

He had thought he understood pain. He and pain were old friends, mutual companions once a month. He had thought he knew the worst it could inflict, breaking bones, slicing skin, cracking and recracking the shape of his body.

But no, he was wrong, because this knife that Sirius Black has taken to his soul hurts so much more than anything the wolf could ever manage to do to him. He stares at the boy who he thought, for a moment, that he could love, who could love him back even though he was raised without so much as a notion or a trace of it, and he can’t see the same person in the shape of Sirius’ face. It was an illusion, a mask Remus put there, his own innocence did it, and now it’s gone and he can see the monster below. 

“Don’t speak to me,” he says, and Sirius is about to interrupt, “you…owe me everything, do you understand? We could have been lovely, in another life, we could, but you turned me into your weapon, you made me a killer, and I want payment,” he continues, irrationally, as though that will make any of this any better, when what Remus really wants no one can give him. “I want _everything_ from you.” 

“He was –“

“Don’t _speak_ to me, except to say yes, or no, and you’re not allowed to say no, do you hear me? You’ll tell Dumbledore about this, you will, on your _own_ , you’ll do it,” he says, knowing that Sirius won’t, because he is so selfish, so unbelievably selfish, to the very core of him. “You owe me _everything_ ,” he sobs, and backs his way to the door, unsure how he managed to get here, to get to this place with this boy, or how he got to the door when he was sure that Sirius - _Black_ \- stood between them. “Say it.”

“Yes.” Sirius says, and there’s desperation there, for the first time. “Please-“

“And you will never speak to me again.”

He doesn’t hear him call his name, but later, he doesn’t know if that’s because Black didn’t bother, or because he simply didn’t care enough to try.

~~~~~~

Godric’s Hollow is peaceful in the morning when Remus is making his way through it, feeling very much like he’s just been hit by the Knight Bus and left for dead on the side of the road. When he knocks on James’ door, it’s Lily who answers. She looks a bit wrung-out herself, exhausted, but then there is a newborn in the house, who could blame her?

“Remus!” she gasps, and suddenly pulls him into a hug, pushing the hair away from his face like she’s his mother. “Where have you _been_ , I’ve been worried sick!” she says, and he can’t help but smile fondly, even though he does not feel much like smiles.

“London,” he manages. “You’re very much a mother, aren’t you?”

She hits him on the shoulder, and then presses a quick conciliatory kiss to his cheek. “James is having a bit of a lie-in, you can hold Harry while I make breakfast-“ and that silence means she’s spotted Tibby. “Why do you have a house-elf?”

“It’s a rather long story,” he supplies. “May I trouble you for a shower, first? Then I will play nurse to my godson as long as you need me to.”

She nods and he comes in, and after a shower James is awake, and Tibby has taken over the kitchen. “You have a house-elf,” is the first thing he says. “This sounds like it may take a while to explain.”

“She belonged to Sirius Black,” Remus explains, a pain in his heart when he says that name. 

James looks puzzled. “Black? Why would you have Sirius Black’s house-elf?”

Remus breathes in, and out. “Because he left her to me. He died, yesterday. He was running the safehouse I was staying in, in London. Can we do this over breakfast? I haven’t eaten at all since yesterday at lunch time, and I would like to only have to tell the story once.”

But once he sits down Lily hands him Harry, and he holds the baby asleep to his chest for a long moment, before he tells the entire affair. At the end, James looks as stunned as if Remus had aimed a bludger at his head. “And Bellatrix?”

“Arrested.”

“And you have a _horcrux_ -“ James whispers, as though if he says it aloud, it’ll wake and ravage the town.

“Not anymore. Dumbledore picked it up yesterday, when they came to clean up. He had been on his way to come get me, he was running late, he said, he was angrier than I had ever seen him when he showed up at 73 Aberdeen. It seems all the intelligence he got on the fact that _You-Know-Who_ might have even made one came from a letter that Regulus sent to Sirius through their father. They weren’t really on speaking terms, but it was impossible, even with their rowing, for them not to speak.” Things Remus learned from Dumbledore, who had been apologetic after he had been angry. “I suppose none of that matters, as I’m to take a true holiday for at least a week. Do you two mind?”

Lily stares at him as though he’s gone mad. “Of course, you bring along your own house-elf, yes, we mind,” she snorts, and Remus realizes how silly that is. Of course they don’t mind. They never have. 

“And Tibby?” James asks, after her, Remus can tell.

Remus shrugs and shushes Harry, who lifts a tiny fist to beat it against his chest. “I casually asked her if she would like a shirt, and she got very distressed and started crying, so I suppose I don’t have much of a choice on that front.” Nor, he doesn’t mention, the house, and the Gringotts vault that is now his. Tibby showed him Sirius’ will. He supposes he’ll have to deal with the House of Black contesting it, but the proof is in the magic.

It is later, much later, after Remus has slept and James has gone to work and returned home, and Tibby has thoroughly reordered Lily’s kitchen that he and James are sitting in the main room and Remus is enjoying the warmth of the fire. “You survived.”

“I have a good rate, when it comes to monsters,” he replies with a sad smile.

James nods. “You’ve always been a bit sad, but if I didn’t know better, I would say your heart broke a little, this last mission.”

James is always good at knowing things that Remus hides, as though secrets are nothing but air. “Maybe it did,” he replies.

James smiles and it’s like they’re thirteen again, and James is going on about how he doesn’t care that Remus is a werewolf, but they haven’t said anything at all. Remus looks behind him, like he expects a spell, a tugging on his pigtails, to come out from nowhere, but there’s no one there except for Tibby who is holding Harry like he is something infinitely precious, and Lily, who is asleep in a chair. He touches his breast pocket, where there is a photo of Sirius, smiling, and sighs, and does not wish to be thirteen again. Eventually James will touch him on the shoulder and he will get up, and begin to sort out everything like the house and the bank, but for now he relaxes back into the overstuffed chair and thinks perhaps he is not so hopeless, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO MASSIVE THANK YOUS:
> 
> To Atti, for whispering for me to write this, for beta'ing it, for holding my hand, for taking three hours out of a trip where she could have forced baseball on me to run me out of a rough patch. She is, as usual, the reason I finished. 
> 
> To Hope and Thleen and Cee, who dealt with me whining about this fic, and especially to Thleen and Cee, who gave me a bit of Regulus without any of us realizing. 
> 
> AND TO SARAH who has never once complained about the pain I put her through with Sirius and for some of the excellent dialogue. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SARAH. It wouldn't be a birthday gift if it didn't make you cry.


End file.
